


Ignore the Camera

by Noëlle McHenry (Quasi_Detective)



Series: Don't Be Bashful [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Affectionate Insults, Anal Sex, Arguing, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Backstory, Beating, Best Friends, Bilingual Character(s), Blood, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Blow Jobs, Boys Kissing, Boys in Chains, Breakfast, Brutal Murder, Canon Backstory, Car Accidents, Chains, Character Death, Coitus Interruptus, Come Marking, Come Shot, Computer Viruses, Condoms, Creepy, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Denial of Feelings, Dominance, Drinking, Drinking Games, Drowning, Drunken Kissing, Dubious Consent, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Embedded Images, Epilogue, Explicit Sexual Content, Exposition, Face-Fucking, Fights, First Time Blow Jobs, Flirting, Gamers, Games, Gay Sex, Head Injury, Heavy Drinking, Horror, Illustrated, Implied Sexual Content, Internal Conflict, Jealousy, Kidnapping, Kissing, Light Angst, Light Bondage, Light Sadism, Living Together, M/M, Male Friendship, Men Crying, Monologue, Murder, Oral Sex, Orgasm, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Original Character Death(s), Possibly Unrequited Love, Psychological Horror, References to Macbeth, References to Shakespeare, Resolved Sexual Tension, Restraints, Revenge, Rough Sex, Sequel, Shakespeare Quotations, Streamers - Freeform, Suspense, Teasing, Twitch - Freeform, Undressing, Video & Computer Games, Violence, Wine, YouTube, indie games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 23:08:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9520076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quasi_Detective/pseuds/No%C3%ABlle%20McHenry
Summary: Val Kozel wants people to know him. That's why he started vlogging and doing live speed-runs. Working alongside best friend and fellow streamer, August, he works toward internet fame. It finally looks like his efforts won't be in vain; his speed-running is helping him build a name for himself. He couldn't be happier.For an early Halloween event, he and August take a request to play a seemingly childish indie game, known for the disappearances of its previous players. The only reason they accept is to debunk the rumors once and for all. What they don't realize is that might be easier said than done.Soon enough, Val regrets even having downloaded the game in the first place. In a matter of days, life as he knew it has fallen apart before his eyes. In fact, it might be about to end. Alas, his viewers are oblivious to his horror. Because it's Halloween, they all think it's no more than a dramatized event . . .A fictional suspense novella by Noëlle McHenry about two streamers who make a fatal mistake. Sequel toPolarity.





	1. Recommendation

**Author's Note:**

> Cover: <http://fav.me/dbaff9y>
> 
>  
> 
> _“Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.” – Friedrich Nietzsche_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 2 (January 16th, 2018): General touch-ups.  
> Edit 1 (May 1st, 2017): Edited, changed from first person to third person, and switched to past tense.  
> Originally posted January 30th, 2017.

Val had never been so terrified in his entire life. There was one problem, though: his viewers didn’t believe him. Even if they did, what could they do? Calling the cops wasn’t an option: they’d think he was tripping out on some sort of illegal drug, even though he was sober. He wished he wasn’t.  
           He was sitting in front of his webcam, broadcasting himself on Twitch. If he wasn’t so terrified, the amount of people watching would’ve pleased him—the counter was at an all-time high. Everyone in the chat was either laughing or spamming the “kappa” emote. They were amused by the show he was putting on, but it wasn’t a show!  
           It was 2:58 AM on October 31st. By 3:00, he knew he’d be dead. He’d told everyone this and tried begging for help, but they only thought it was part of the act. All he wanted was for them to believe him.  
           “GG, Val!” wrote someone in chat.  
           “Two more minutes, guys! Hype!” said another one.  
           His mind was running circles in terror. They’d think his death was fake, in the biggest case of dramatic irony he’d ever heard of. It’d be mere entertainment to them, as was his life beforehand. They’d comment on how fake it looked, because it wouldn’t look like it did in the movies. He likely wouldn’t even be in the frame.  
           His real pain came from the fact that his entire life had led up to this. It was hard to believe that this was all because he’d decided to play an indie game.  
           “Please,” he gasped to the microphone in front of his face. His hand was on his mouse due to sheer reflex, though he didn’t need it. “I swear this isn’t some sort of Halloween event. I’m about to die!”  
           More kappa emotes came his way.  
           “You should be an actor. You’re great at staying true to character!” one person commented. They followed their remark up with a kappa as well.  
           “This isn’t a joke!” Val’s hazel eyes started to well up behind his glasses, but he wasn’t crying yet.  
           He lived in a small two-storey house with thin walls, and he was in the basement. So when he heard footsteps on the floor above him, he tensed up and went dead silent. The chat slowed down, but he wasn’t paying attention to it anymore.  
           “Did you guys hear that?” he asked the chat in a low voice. If anyone replied, he didn’t notice.  
           2:59 AM. The basement stairs creaked. Val had only sixty seconds to live.  


* * *

His full name was Valentine Kozel, but his friends called him Val. He was from Ukraine, but moved to Pennsylvania with his parents in 2012. His family wasn’t rich, but wasn’t poor either. Four years ago, he’d moved into his own apartment.  
           He’d always had a passion for gaming, ever since his first console: a PlayStation 2 he got on his fourth birthday. He wanted to be known. He wanted people to know about his life—his habits. Making friends offline was difficult. So three years ago, on his 19th birthday, he finally made himself a YouTube channel. The first thing he did was start a vlog. He picked the username “Valcupine”. In retrospect, he wished he could explain why, but it was a spur of the moment decision.  
           The vlog was slow-going, of course, until he made a Twitch channel under the same name a few months later. There, he started showing off his speed-running skills in various video games. He hadn’t expected much to come of it; it’d only been an experiment, to kill time. Yet, more and more people became interested in his content. As a result, he seemed to grow better at speed-running harder games. At last, he was starting to build up a reputation.  
           It was through Twitch that Val met a casual Danish gamer called KasGaming. He later learned that his full name was August Kasper Lund, but he went by “Kas” online for privacy’s sake. August had been streaming his light-hearted playthroughs for five years. As luck would have it, it turned out that they both lived in Pittsburgh. So one day, Val was a guest on August’s channel. Little did they realize at the time that Val would soon be there for almost every single episode of his show. It was also streamed on Val’s Twitch channel when he wasn’t doing a speed-run, even when he wasn’t present (which was rare).  
           Soon they became such close friends that they decided to rent a house together. Of course, that meant a lot of their fans would see them as a closeted couple, but they didn’t mind. It was funny to see some of the corny romantic fanfictions and pictures they made. Besides, Val was a small brunet guy with glasses who only stood at five foot seven and wasn’t very athletic. Whereas August (or “Kas”, as the fans knew him) was six feet tall, blond, and muscular. The girls of their fanbase thought that meant Val bottomed and that they were secret lovers. In truth, they were no more than brotherly housemates. They took amusement in it, nonetheless. The house they shared was small and had thin walls, but did have two floors. So at the time, they figured they’d done well for themselves.  
           Only a few months prior, Val got invited to join in Summer Games Done Quick. Overall, it’d been a fun experience. He got a few new fans from it. What made him happiest of all, though, was that he was finally becoming known.  
           Of course, he didn’t realize at the time that this would be the death of him.  
           It was now October 10th of 2018. He and August were live. They weren’t sure what to play today on his show, so they were taking requests. They did this sometimes; the fans seemed to enjoy it.  
           “Castlevania!” suggested someone in the chat.  
           August and Val exchanged a glance.  
           “We’ve already played that, right?” August asked.  
           “Yeah,” Val answered with a smile, “we’ve played them all.”  
           They broadcasted the show from their basement, which they’d set up to be more of a studio. The black foam pads stuck to the walls for soundproofing did little to that effect, but they left them up anyway. More suggestions came their way, most of which they either weren’t in the mood for, or had already played. They held fast to a rule of never playing the same game twice, though they felt they’d have to break it soon enough.  
           “Come on, guys,” August nagged in a charismatic way. He had a thick, Danish accent. Val liked it, since he had an accent of his own: Ukrainian, though it wasn’t as thick as August’s. “It’s going to be Halloween in three weeks! Let’s get the spook on, huh?”  
           They got a flood of game names from various people in chat: “Slender!” “FNAF.” “Sister’s Location!” “Sara Is Missing.” “Undertale?” “Outlast.” “Amnesia?” “How about Bashful Bunny?”  
           “Whoa.” August held his hands up in mock surrender. “You’re recommending _that_ trash?”  
           Val looked at him, confused. “What?”  
           “Someone told us to play Bashful Bunny.” The Dane sniggered. “For one, that’s a kids’ game. Second, some streamers are playing it and making it into some sort of running gag for the spook factor.” He then shrugged in a dismissive way. “They’re all inactive now. Guess they realized it wasn’t a funny joke.”  
           “What do you mean?”  
           Noticing Val’s confusion, August raised his brow. “You’ve never heard? Everyone says that any streamer who plays it dies on camera if they play it wrong, goes missing if they don’t. It’s stupid.”  
           Val had never been a very superstitious person, so he raised his brow also. “Well,” he quipped, “you _did_ ask for something ‘spooky’.”  
           “How about this?” The blond turned back to the camera. “I’m not touching that children’s game with a ten-foot-pole, but if Val agrees, _he’ll_ play it while I watch. _Just_ so we can debunk this corny creepypasta trend.” He looked at Val again. “You game?”  
           Val nodded. “Sure.” He figured, _what’s the worst that could happen? It’s only some awful children’s game that everyone likes to_ pretend _is scary._  
           It wasn’t easy to scare him, and he wasn’t one to take challenges lightly. So they followed the viewer’s advice of where to download the game, which led them to IndieDB, of all sites.  
            _At least it’s not GameJolt_ , Val thought, though he proceeded to laugh at the thumbnail for the game.  
           “Good page,” he snarked, trying to hold back his chuckles. “Ten out of ten in execution. Is that _Comic Sans_?” It wasn’t, but it looked similar. As the archive downloaded, they looked at some of the screenshots.  
           “Oh, man,” remarked August as he playfully elbowed his partner. “RPG Maker VX Ace _and_ shitty custom sprites. We’re in for a treat, Val. Are you ready to get your _meme_ on?”  
           “Oh, Jesus,” Val groaned through a vacant smirk. “Pass the bleach.”  
           A few viewers in the chat got pissy, so August announced, “Okay, a disclaimer here before you guys want our heads on sticks: we’re not usually this negative about indie games. But . . .” He gestured at the screen. “Come on. You can’t defend this. It’s like a badly written creepypasta.”  
           “It’s hard not to judge a game by its cover,” Val added, “when the cover uses flat MS Paint pink and pseudo-Comic Sans.”  
           The two shared a laugh at the expense of the game’s poor visuals.  
           “I mean, in its defense, Kas, it _is_ a kids’ game.”  
           “That’s no excuse,” said the Dane. “You don’t get to make something terrible just because it’s for kids.”  
           The download only had a few more seconds to go. As August thanked the viewers for waiting, Val skimmed the game’s description.  
           “Go on an adventure with _Bashful_ ,” it read, “the bunny who _loves_ children!”  
            _Bet he’s a pedophile._  
           “Learn what it means to feel ‘ _LOVE_ ’ with your new pal. He’ll always be by your side! But be careful what you say, and make sure you _NEVER_ lie, because Bashful _hates_ liars.”  
           It was a weird, brief description that wasn’t even well-written. There was nothing else there, either. No features, no news, no instructions. Nothing. Val had to admit to himself that it was sort of eerie.  
           “Who made this?” he asked openly, but then he saw the link to the creator’s profile. It wasn’t a surprise to find it empty.  
           “God knows,” August answered, “but he’s a poor S.O.B., whoever he is. I bet he’s some lonely old man who lost his kids or something.”  
           Val shot August a playful-yet-scolding look. “No need to depress everybody.”  
           Finally, they got the game extracted. The executable’s icon was the sprite head of Bashful: a pink rabbit with squinty eyes. He only recognized it due to the bad cover and screenshots.  
           “I’m going to assume I start it now. Are we ready?”  
           August only shrugged, so he took that as a yes and started the game. What greeted them was Bashful’s face as the background of the title screen. The title itself was not written, but in its default position at bottom-center of the screen sat the menu.  
           “This is weird,” muttered Val.  
           August laughed. “You walnut. Maybe you should turn on screen capture so the audience can see it, too.”  
           Val felt as though marbles were whizzing about inside his brain. “Well, _doi_ ,” he groaned. “I was going to. Be patient, you dick.” Though, he hadn’t realized that the screen capture wasn’t already started. August’s cocky smirk in response showed that he knew.  
           Without further delay, Val selected the game in their broadcaster and resized for the audience. Some of their chat went wild, though that part seemed to have mixed emotions. Half of them were ecstatic to see someone new playing the game. The other half were begging them not to do it. Of course, as realistic as they were, they ignored the latter half.  
           “Come on, guys,” teased Val, “stop worrying so much. It’ll be fine!”  
           Little did Val realize how wrong he was.

 


	2. Adventure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 1 (January 17th, 2018): General touch-ups. Modified some of the bilingualisms, also added list of used phrases and their equivalent translations to notes at end of chapter.  
> Originally posted on May 4th, 2017.

When the game started, it seemed innocent enough. The first thing that greeted them was the sight of an audience of kids looking at a stage. Then, with a drum roll and a cymbal crash, from behind the curtains came Bashful.  
           “Hiya, kids!” the tall, pink rabbit exclaimed, surprising the two streamers with voiceover. He had a thick Australian accent, which they had to admit was a tad bit unexpected. “Uncle Bashful here!”  
           Applause, presumably from the kids, broke out. Val and August took the pause to give each other a mutual look of bewilderment. Neither of them were knew what to say, but somehow, they were both disappointed and intrigued.  
           “So glad you could all make it today,” continued the rabbit, “because I’ve got something special planned!”  
           “That would be a nightmare,” said August.  
           Val looked at his friend. “What do you mean?”  
           “Being there, even as a kid. If it were real, you know. I mean, picture it: you’re four or five years old, sitting around, minding your own business, when in storms _that_ _pikhoved_.”  
           Noticing the Danish that the blond had used, Val inquired, “ _Pikhoved_?”  
           “Dickhead,” August answered in a wry voice. “I think.”  
           Bashful continued unfazed, of course, as he couldn’t hear their conversation. “That’s right, today one lucky kiddo will join me on an adventure about **‘** love’!”  
           During another brief applause break, Val asked, “I don’t know, don’t you think this is somehow unsettling?”  
           “I’ll only need one brave little ankle-biter. Anyone?” Then, nothing happened.  
           “Did the game freeze?” August laughed in amusement.  
           “Am I . . . supposed to do something?” Val questioned. Curious, he pressed the right arrow key. Sure enough, the game resumed with Bashful stepping closer to the audience.  
           “You!” the rabbit exclaimed. “How about you? Are you a guy or a gal?” A prompt followed with two options: “guy” or “gal”.  
           “Well,” Val joked, “last time I checked, I was a guy.”  
           “You sure about that?” August quipped.  
           “Bite me,” the Ukrainian countered in a playful voice. He picked “guy”, and after another brief pause—“God, what terrible load times. Do RPG Maker games even _need_ to load anything?”—out of the audience stepped a sprite of a boy. To Val’s surprise, it had his hair color.  
           “Wow, what are the odds of that?” inquired August. “The male character’s got red hair like you.”  
           “It’s _auburn_ , _zhopa_.”  
           “ _Skrid med dig_.” Though the two streamers often insulted each other in their native languages, they always did so while fighting off smiles. This playful banter was no exception.  
           “Do you two always rag on each other?” asked someone in chat.  
           “Yeah,” Val admitted to the microphone.  
           August wrapped his arm over Val and laid his head on the smaller man’s shoulder. Then, in a delicate voice, he sung, “ _Din mor er en luder_.”  
           “ _Zakryi pel’ku_.”  
           Again, the two of them shared a laugh even though they had no clue what was being said to them. When they brought their attention back to the game, they realized that Val was now on the stage beside Bashful.  
           The rabbit asked, “What’s your name, kiddo?” Another prompt appeared, this time with text input. August started to giggle, which caused Val to look at him.  
           “What? Do you have an idea?”  
           The Dane struggled to speak between snickers, but soon managed to say, “Enter ‘ _Røvbanan_ ’. ‘R-O-V-B-A-N-A-N’.”  
           As Val obliged, he questioned, “What does that mean?”  
           His friend laughed. “Do it,” he begged, “just do it.”  
           Val entered the name.  
           “Cheers!” replied Bashful, cheery as ever.  
           August burst into hysterics, kicking his feet and slapping his hands together like a seal. Val watched him in an amused astonishment.  
           “Oh my God!” cried the Dane. “I can’t believe it let you _use_ that!”  
           “What did I call myself?”  
           “Your name is ‘ _ass-banana_ ’!”  
           While both of them—and most of the chat—laughed, Bashful remarked, “I’m gonna call you ‘Basil’, though, okay?”  
           “Okay, okay,” Val said through an exhale. “We should be serious!”  
           “If you insist,” August snarked.  
           Getting back on track, Val allowed Bashful to progress. The rabbit’s next words were: “This might get sort of complicated, but I have bad memory. What month were you born in?” Yet another prompt. This one read “Jan” and had arrows to scroll. So, Val scrolled until he found “Apr”.  
           “Eeey,” Bashful squealed, “Easter month! Now, Basil, what’s the day you were born on?” The prompt started at “00”. Without warning, Val felt curious.  
           “Let’s see how well-coded this is,” he proposed. Then, he accepted the prompt without doing anything, telling the game that he was born on April 0.  
           “Wait, that can’t be right,” Bashful realized. So he asked his question again.  
           “Try April 31st,” August instructed.  
           “Why the 31st?”  
           “Because there’s no such thing as April 31st.”  
           “There isn’t?”  
           August stared at Val like he was an idiot. So Val pretended that he hadn’t said anything and entered the suggested date. The response was the same.  
           “At least it’s not _totally_ stupid,” the Dane then remarked.  
           Satisfied, Val told the truth, answering “April 4 th”.  
           “Happy Doomsday!” Bashful sung as a speech bubble with a music note appeared over his head for a moment. Val raised his brow, but didn’t have long to ponder before the rabbit asked, “Finally, what’s your birth year?”  
           Val snickered. “I’m old.” With that, he answered “1900”. The answer was actually 1996, but where was the fun in answering in earnest?  
           “How old does that make you, then?” When only two digits showed up, Val realized his mistake.  
           “Oh, shit.”  
           “You messed up,” August teased in sing-song.  
           “Gonna have to answer ‘zero’, then . . .” With reluctance, Val accepted the prompt without changing it.  
           Disheveled all at once, the rabbit complained, “That’s wrong. I’ll let it slide for now, though.” Right as it seemed like the game was finally going to start, though, an exclamation point appeared above his head. He looked back at the audience. “Far out! It seems you’ve got a mate! Can’t leave them out of this, can we?”  
           Val looked at August, who looked back at him. The chat appeared surprised by this, as if it wasn’t a regular part of the game. It hadn’t said anywhere that the game could even _be_ two-player . . .  
            _What’s going on?_ Val wondered. _Did we download some sort of new version?_  
           From the audience, a blond boy stepped up onto the stage.  
           “ _Øh_ . . .” August groaned in discomfort. “Okay. I’ll admit it: _that_ is a little weird.”  
           “I’m going to call your friend ‘Buttons’,” declared Bashful. Then, he looked again at the audience and announced, “All right, everyone, wish Basil and I luck! Our adventure begins now!” As the audience applauded once more, the three sprites walked in caterpillar fashion to the curtain, which they disappeared behind. The screen faded out.  
           “So, that happened,” Val mumbled.  
           The chat was going wild. The half that wanted them to not play the game was now more vocal than ever. Some of them were even screaming in all-caps to “QUIT THE GAME NOW”. But the two streamers outright ignored these messages.  
           Several long seconds passed. Nothing happened. The game remained only a black screen. After realizing that he and August were dead silent waiting for something to happen, Val finally asked, “Uh, really? Is that _it_?”  
           The chat seemed to think otherwise. Those who’d seen other streamers play the game mentioned they’d only ever seen one character go with Bashful, and that there was supposed to be more.  
           “You’re supposed to be in front of Bashful’s house right now,” one of them said, “or something like that.”  
           “Try opening the menu,” August suggested. “Maybe they forgot to make the map event auto-run.”  
           Val pressed the “X” key on his keyboard, hoping the menu would open, but it didn’t. He then remarked, “When in doubt . . .” and began pressing every letter key, then Alt, Ctrl, Esc. When none of them did anything, he tried clicking. Still nothing. Checking the Task Manager revealed that the game did, in fact, appear to have hung—both its CPU and Memory Usage numbers were frozen.  
           “Good game,” August griped in sarcasm.  
           “Looks like the game is a _suka_ ,” someone in the chat wrote, following this up with a kappa. Val gave it a small chuff of amusement, but nothing more.  
           “That sucks,” the Ukrainian commented. “I mean, I wasn’t getting into it yet, but I could’ve got there.”  
           “We were running out of time anyway,” August pointed out. Val looked at the clock and saw that it was almost three in the morning—the time at which they stopped streaming.  
           “Ah.”  
           Since there was nothing else to do and they were short on time, they decided to bid their audience goodnight. Then they went offline. Val leaned back in his chair with a weary sigh. August examined the still-open game window and scratched his head.  
           “How odd,” he muttered. “I’ve seen a lot of stupid things happen with these sorts of games, but I’ve never seen one hang like this.”  
           “At least,” Val added, “not on purpose.”  
           “An intentional softlock? What does that solve?”  
           “I don’t know.”  
           August shook his head and closed the game. “How weird is it that there was a friend, though? The chat said that was unusual.”  
           “Yeah, it was pretty strange.” Val yawned and stretched as August stood up.  
           As the Dane made his way to the door that led to the basement stairs, he asked, “I’m starving, what about you?”  
           A few minutes later, the two of them were standing in the kitchen. As they leaned across from each other against the counter and ate sandwiches, Val pointed out, “You seem okay with this.”  
           August looked at him and swallowed the bite of sandwich he held. He didn’t seem to be aware of what Val meant. So, looking at his sandwich, he replied, “I don’t mind bologna.”  
           “No, stupid, the game.”  
           The blond’s dark green eyes lit up with recognition, but he only shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I be?”  
           “I mean”—August bit into his sandwich as Val spoke—“the whole thing with the sprites and the friend. It’s almost like the game knew that there were two of us—knew what we _look_ like. You don’t find that . . .” He looked for the English word for what he was thinking of, having to take a moment to find it. “. . . Unsettling?”  
           August, still chewing, shook his head.  
           “Why not?”  
           Once his mouth was clear, he answered, “It’s a coincidence. Here’s my opinion.” He put his half-eaten sandwich down on a plate on the counter so he could use his hands as he spoke. “I think they updated the game. Whoever made it hasn’t noticed yet that they broke the map transition somehow.”  
           “But why add a new character? That sounds like a bad writing choice to me.”  
           “Beats me.”  
           “And what are the odds of them having our hair colors?”  
           “We’re not the only people in the world with blond and red”—August caught himself—“sorry, blond and _auburn_ hair. Besides, those colors go well together on characters. I wouldn’t think too hard about it.” He picked his food back up. “ _Græde tørre tårer_.”  
           Val hummed in response and nibbled at his own sandwich. Whatever the case, even August’s explanation didn’t soothe him.  
            _Something about that game felt_ off _to me somehow . . . I don’t trust it. It’s crazy, but I can’t help but feel like there’s something_ evil _about it._  
           “You know, Val . . . If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it creeped you out.”  
           Val looked up. “No, that’s not it. It confused me, that’s all.”  
           “ _Nåeh_ ,” August hummed with thick sarcasm.  
           “ _Khuy na ne_! How could _that_ have creeped me out? I’ve speed-run _Amnesia_ four times!”  
           The Dane smirked. “Sure, sure. I’ll make sure not to show you any rabbits, _Røvbanan_.”  
           “Oh, eat a dick,” Val laughed.  
            _He’s got to be right, though. Everyone’s hyping the game into something it’s not. Everything’ll be fine. The sprites were only a coincidence. Man, how stupid would it be if a bad kids’ game actually_ scared _me? Ha!_  
           That night, Val slept in his own bedroom like any normal night. He refused to let the idea of Bashful Bunny terrorize him through the night, so it didn’t.  
            _I’ll wake up_ , he’d thought as he got into bed, _and everything will be back to normal. It’ll be as if we never played that awful game._  
           But at around ten in the morning, he was awoken by a knock on his bedroom door. It confused him to the point where he at first thought he’d only imagined it. As he laid his head back down, though, he heard it again.  
            _August? What’s he doing? He never knocks . . ._  
           Still groggy, he perched himself up with his elbow and blindly reached for his glasses. They were on the bedside table, right where he’d left them. “Yeah?” he called out.  
           The door opened. In stepped August, looking a bit disheveled. “Val.” He sounded deadly serious, if not somewhat frightened.  
           Val’s muscles tensed at the unusual tone, then he jumped out of bed. “What is it? Is something wrong?”  
           For a beat, August said nothing. When he finally did speak, all he said was, “You need to see this.”  
           That was all Val needed to hear. He followed August down to the first floor. They headed into the basement together, where August opened the door and walked into their recording area.  
           “When I came downstairs to start editing the footage from last night, it was like this. I got you immediately. Haven’t touched it.”  
           “What are you talking about?”  
           August gestured to the computer in response. Though uncertain, Val approached it. He looked at the screen; it was easy for him to see what had startled August, because it startled him, too.  
           The only open window was Bashful Bunny. In the game, the pink rabbit was standing in a living room-type area with the two character sprites in front of him. His text box read, “Rise and shine! It’s time to start our adventure!”  
           Val gasped. “ _Satana_ . . .”  
           “You don’t know the half of it,” August exclaimed. He pointed at the camera they used to stream themselves. Its activity light was on. “Val, we’re _live_.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Phrases**  
>  _Pikhoved_ : Dickhead  
>  _Zhopa (Жопа)_ : Asshole  
>  _Skrid med dig_ : Fuck off  
>  _Din mor er un luder_ : Your mother is a whore  
>  _Zakryi pel'ku (Закрї пельку)_ : Shut up  
>  _Røvbanan_ : Assbanana  
>  _Øh_ : Uh  
>  _Suka (Сука)_ : Bitch  
>  _Græde tørre tårer_ : Don't lose sleep over it (lit. Cry dry tears)  
>  _Nåeh_ : intrigued "Oh"  
>  _Khuy na ne (Хуй на не)_ : No fucking way  
>  _Satana (Cатана)_ : Holy cow (slang)


	3. Questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 1 (January 17th, 2018): General touch-ups. Added some elements to reference August's past.  
> Originally posted on May 7th, 2017.

Val couldn’t believe it. _This has to be some sort of prank_ , he thought, but then he looked again at August. The Dane didn’t have much of a poker face—when he felt something, it was obvious. Written across his face now was either uncertainty or fear. He was serious about having found the computer like this.  
           “We turned it off last night, didn’t we?” he asked as Val stared at him.  
           The Ukrainian was slow in shaking his head. “I don’t think so.”  
           “Right . . .” Then he looked back at the screen. The game was still open, front and center. “But we closed the game, right?”  
           “I’m certain we did.”  
           The Dane shook his head clear and began addressing the audience. “Sorry for coming online at such an odd time, guys. I don’t know how this happened.” He stepped closer to the computer, reaching for the mouse, but Val grabbed his rolled-up sleeve to stop him.  
           “Wait,” ordered the Ukrainian. “Don’t.”  
           “Why not?”  
           Val nodded his chin toward the game. “Maybe it’s supposed to do this. Maybe this is how we play.”  
           “Are you kidding? Any program that auto-starts our livestream is no friend of mine. Who knows how long we’ve been online?”  
           “Aug”—Remembering that they were live, Val stopped himself and started over. “ _Kas_ , we owe it to the audience after last night. If the game pulled itself out of a softlock, then we might as well give it one last shot, right?”  
           August huffed and stared at Val. He didn’t look pleased, but after a few seconds, he sighed. After throwing his hands up in mild exasperation, he conceded, “Fine, if you say so.”  
           In truth, Val was curious. Something about the game, despite its innocent appearance, had managed to rattle him. In a morbid way, he was interested to see what would come of it. Would it be as horrifying as the chat warned, or would it be nothing more than what it looked to be?  
            _If we don’t continue now, then I’ll never know. I need to satisfy my curiosity._  
           He sat down in the chair closest to the screen and August sat in the chair next to it. Both were rolling office chairs, though they sometimes had trouble moving on the carpet. They took a moment to update their Twitter accounts, letting people know they were live. Then they waited a bit for people to join into the stream. Meanwhile, they watched the chat.  
           Someone alerted them that the stream had only been live for about five minutes before August first came downstairs. It took a second for them to realize that could be true. The camera would’ve been on to show the audience August’s first appearance of the day.  
           “That’s no coincidence,” Val pointed out. “Only five minutes? It’s almost like the game _knew_ that you were about to come downstairs.”  
           “ _Hvis og hvis_ , _min røv var spids_ ,” countered August. “Besides, don’t most guys like us wake up right about now?”  
           “That’s being generous . . .”  
           There came a polarity in the chat: some were eager for Val to continue playing, the rest annoyed by the sudden stream. August apologized to them a few times, then stopped paying attention altogether. Once they’d reached a decent number of viewers, he glanced at Val.  
           “You ready?” he asked.  
           “Yeah,” Val replied in a casual way. “Let’s do this.” He pressed the “Z” key to progress the game.  
           “I hope you’re excited for our adventure!” exclaimed Bashful. “Your friend, too. Are you ready to begin?” A prompt showed up, but its only option was “Yes”.  
           “Guess I don’t have a whole lot of choices,” Val joked as he confirmed the prompt.  
           “Great! I’m so eager to play with you.”  
           . . . Then the game hung again.  
           “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding,” griped August.  
           “Well, at least the game’s not stuck on a black screen this time,” Val mumbled as he tried different keys on the keyboard. Whatever key he pressed, it didn’t matter. The game was again unresponsive.  
           “I don’t even care. I for one say we should give up on this thing. If it’s going to make us wait twenty-four hours for ten seconds of playtime, then it’s nothing but a waste of time.”  
           Val wanted to fight back, but August had a point. They hadn’t been playing for too long, anyway. “Fine, I guess you’re right.”  
           August took the mouse and went to exit the game. It closed, but after a second, startled them by reopening and returning to where it was.  
           “Don’t,” ordered Bashful.  
           August and Val shared a look, eyebrows raised. Was this happening? Val tried to progress the game, but again it hung, this time with the text box open. So August closed the game again, only for it to restart in exactly the same way.  
           “Be patient.”  
           When August disobeyed, closing the game again, it didn’t reopen. “What a hassle.”  
           “Yeah,” Val murmured, “you could say that again . . .”  
           To make up for gathering viewers, the two of them decided to play something else for a while. When they finished, Val returned upstairs while August began editing the recordings. Val was lounging on the living room couch, surfing his Twitter feed, when August stormed up to the kitchen. He watched in silence as he aggressively poured himself a glass of orange juice.  
           “What happened?” he questioned as August chugged the drink.  
           The Dane slammed the glass down and exhaled, then turned to look at Val. “So, the game’s open again.”  
           Val sat up. “Oh?”  
           “Yeah. Found out too why that was the only thing open this morning. Could’ve sworn I’d left Chrome open. Turns out this _pik slikker_ closes everything that’s running when it restarts.”  
           “Ah, so . . .”  
           “ _Joeh_ . . . Guess who lost half an hour of editing.” August poured himself another glass. In a voice dripping with false assurance, he insisted, “It’s fine, though. _Totally_ fine. I’m not even mad.”  
           “Sorry.”  
           “It also does jumpstart the stream.”  
           “We’re live?”  
           “Right now, yeah.” August gestured toward the basement stairs. “Are we going to keep them waiting, or are we going to keep playing this stupid game?”  
           That was all it took to get Val to head back downstairs. Nothing was going on in-game, but when Val pressed one of the arrow keys, he was finally able to move his character. Upon discovering this, he took his seat. August sat beside him as usual, holding a cup full of juice. Val was about to start, but his eyes caught on the chat.  
           “Eh . . . What are they talking about?” he asked August. The Dane leaned forward to see the chat better.  
           “That’s so creepy!” some of them said. “What was that?” asked others.  
           “No clue,” August answered Val’s question. Soon, someone in the chat returned an answer.  
           “While you were away, Bashful said, ‘Oh no, where has Buttons gone?’ It disappeared right before you guys showed up.”  
           “Bullshit,” August laughed it off. Val, on the other hand, found himself taking it seriously, though he said nothing.  
           Interacting with Bashful resulted in another question and prompt. “Basil, where are you from?” When Val answered “Ukraine”, the rabbit asked, “Fair dinkum, mate? Well, if you say so . . .”  
           “I mean, I am,” Val muttered, “but whatever. Not sure why it would doubt that.”  
           “It could mean where we are right now,” August reasoned. “Then again, not sure how it would know the answer.”  
           Val opened the menu. Instead of the regular character-based menu, it was only a list of commands in a centered box. There was an option called “Knowledge” that attracted his attention.  
           “I wonder what this is.” He selected the option.  
           “Knowledge” led to a string of textboxes about what Bashful knew of him. “Bashful knows your name: Rovbanan.”  
           August snickered.  
           “Bashful knows your gender: guy.” “Bashful knows your birthday: April 4 th, 1900.” “Bashful knows that your birthday falls on a _Doomsday_.”  
           “What does that even mean?” Val questioned. “My birthday is on a ‘Doomsday’? What’s a Doomsday?”  
           “The end of the world,” offered August.  
           “Yeah, but there’s only _one_ doomsday, and it can’t be predicted.”  
           August shrugged. After a moment’s thought, though, his face seemed to pale. His face fell into a tense frown.  
           “Kas? What’s the matter?”  
           He jolted at the sound of Val’s voice, shooting him a rather troubled look. “Nothing,” he said. “Never mind me. Let’s see the next text box.” With a shaky hand, he raised his glass to his lips and drank. Val decided to let it drop, at least for the time being, but not without reluctance.  
           “Bashful knows that you are 118 years old (give or take one year).” “Bashful knows that you have a friend.” “Bashful knows that you live in the United States.”  
           “Okay,” August remarked, “I guess it does know somehow?”  
           “We never told it that, though,” Val pointed out. “How would it know that? It’s an RPG Maker game. It’s not like it can read our IP address or anything.”  
           “Bashful knows that you live in Pennsylvania.”  
           Val tensed at the sight of the name of the state they lived in. “All right . . . Seems I spoke too soon.”  
           “What the fuck is this?” August hissed under his breath.  
           “You have lied to Bashful 3 times,” read the final textbox.  
           Someone in the chat pointed out some things that made Val look again at the counter’s current number. “Wait,” he said. “August, we’ve only lied to it twice. Why does it say three?”  
           August paused in thought before answering, “I mean, ‘Rovbanan’ isn’t your name.”  
           “How would it know that?”  
           That response silenced August. The athletic blond shrugged again. “Haven’t we only lied to it once?”  
           “No, we lied about me being born in 1900.”  
           “Oh, yeah. Right. Didn’t we lie three times, then?”  
           “What do you mean?”  
           “It asked for your age.”  
           “But it _only_ reacted to my age. I don’t think it even registered my birth year being weird.”  
           “Fair enough.”  
           “Basil,” Bashful said, “don’t ignore me.”  
           Val tried to leave the map through the doorway at the bottom, but nothing happened. He tried using the “Z” key to interact with it, but that didn’t help either.  
           “How do I get out of here?” he inquired.  
           “The door should’ve opened when you stepped on that tile . . .” someone in the chat answered.  
           “Oh, great.” August huffed. “Another softlock?”  
           “Sorry, Basil,” Bashful griped without warning. “I feel like you’re not ready to take this adventure seriously. So we’re going to backtrack a bit first. Let’s talk about your friend.”  
           “ _For helvede_ ,” August cursed, impatient.  
           “How much do you love August?”  
           Both streamers froze. Val stared at the textbox. It read “Buttons”, but he could’ve sworn the voiceover had said “August”.  
           “Did it say ‘August’,” August, incredulous, asked, “or am I going crazy?”  
           “No, I heard it too,” Val assured.  
           “What the hell?”  
           The prompt under the textbox had four options: “More than anything!”, “A lot!”, “So-so.”, and “Not a bit.”  
           “Should I . . .” Val hesitated. “Should I answer this?”  
           “I guess you have to,” August succumbed.  
           Val gazed at his options. “I mean, you’re my best friend, so I feel like I should pick the top one.”  
           “Then again,” August observed, “this seems to be a ‘love’ question. Like, _love_. We’re friends, so ‘a lot’ is more suitable, right?”  
           “I guess so . . .” Following that logic, Val selected the second option: “A lot!”  
           “Is that so?” Bashful questioned. “So you’d be able to live without him?”  
           “What kind of question is that?” Val sneered.  
           “Whatever you say,” concluded Bashful. “I’ll test you on that later. In the meantime, I have another question.”  
           “What else could it possibly want to know?”  
           “When’s Buttons’ birthday?”  
           August sat up straight in his chair. “Close it.”  
           “Huh? Why? I mean, I’m curious, too. You’ve never told me . . .”  
           Two prompts showed up: “His birthday is . . .” and “I refuse!”  
           “Let’s answer, all right? We might be able to continue after that.”  
           “No, trust me, Val. Close it.”  
           “Kas . . .”  
           “Move over.” August bumped his chair against Val’s, causing it to shift away from the keyboard. Taking control of the game himself, he pressed down on the arrow keys and selected “I refuse!”  
           “Figured as much,” Bashful grumbled. “Friends shouldn’t keep secrets, Buttons. If you really loved me, you’d tell me.”  
           “How ‘bout I tell you to go fuck yourself, you rabbit piece of shit?” the Dane snarled. He pressed Alt and F4 together, closing the game. When it didn’t reopen, he shook his head in distaste. “Good riddance. Now can we delete this thing?”  
           “Eh, yeah, I-I guess . . . Are you okay?”  
           August only grunted in response as he moved the game’s folder into the recycle bin. He then emptied it, deleting the game from their computer altogether. Thinking that was the end of that, the two streamers bid the audience farewell once more and returned to what they were doing beforehand. Even though August remained downstairs this time, Val found it near-impossible to relax. All he could think about was how the pink rabbit had told him it would “test” him on his response. He worried that picking the second option opposed to the first was a mistake.  
            _No_ , he thought to himself, _come on. The game’s deleted. It’s over and I’ll never know what it meant._  
           But he was still agitated. Something in his gut told him that his “adventure” with Bashful was _far_ from over.  
            _Why had it taken such an interest in August’s birthday? Better yet, why’s he never even told me when it is? Why did he get so agitated when it asked for it?_  
           He had no answers, thus no choice but to ignore everything. Nothing else _could_ happen . . . right?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Phrases:**  
>  _Hvis og hvis, min røv var spids_ : "If and if, my ass was sharp"; used to say something sounds "overly hypothetical"  
>  _Pik slikker_ : Cocksucker  
>  _Joeh_ : sort of like "Yeah, well"  
>  _For helvede_ : Fuck's sake/goddamn it


	4. Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted on January 18th, 2018.

3:47 AM. Val sat on the staircase to the second floor, watching the clock on his phone as it rolled over to 3:48. Then, he sighed and glanced down toward the kitchen. The days leading up to now had been normal. It was like they’d never played Bashful Bunny at all. Whenever anyone mentioned it, they ignored them. But now, August was doing his most peculiar of annual routines. From 3:30 to 4:30 AM, on the morning of October 24th, August would always do the same thing: he’d get up out of bed, walk downstairs, pull out a secret bottle of wine from a high-up shelf, pour himself a glass and sit in the kitchen.  
           This was only Val’s second time watching him from the staircase, but he knew it was a recurring event. After all, it was always the same wine bottle. The first time he’d seen it, it was half-full. If August only drank a half a glass’ worth every time and left the rest for the next year, he must’ve been doing so for four or five years at least.  
           In most aspects, Val felt confident that he knew August rather well. When it came to this, though, he had to admit that he was baffled.  
           _He always seems so happy and carefree_ , he thought to himself this time, as August let out a sad sigh in the other room. _Yet, here he is, battling some demons I don’t know about. What troubles him that only does so one hour of the year? And at such an odd time?_  
           It was always 3:30 to 4:30 in the morning, always reaching its peak at 3:50. At that point, August would laid his head down on his arms and, Val assumed, cry in silence.  
           _Speaking of . . ._  
           Val glanced at his phone’s screen in time to see it tick over to 3:50. He then leaned over on the stairs to get a better view into the kitchen. From here he could see August’s back. As expected, he’d hunched over the table and no longer made any audible sounds.  
           The Ukrainian let out a quiet huff of his own and straightened himself. Without knowing anything, there wasn’t much he could do to help. At the same time, though, he didn’t want to invade August’s privacy during what seemed to be an intimate moment.  
           _It’s only during this hour that I realize how little I know about him—what his life was like before me._  
           As he sat there, he found himself in the midst of an internal debate. August would be fine later, that much he knew. His concern was that his happiness was a mere ruse—a mask to hide his worries, that had now temporarily slipped. If he was going to get to the bottom of this, he’d have to reach out to him now, before this moment of weakness passed again.  
           _I should leave him alone, but . . . I can’t bear to sleep knowing he’s so sad and alone like this._  
           He made sure to be quiet as he stood up on the stairs. Then, he walked down to the first floor. Though now able to see the whole kitchen from the foot of the stairs, he looked only at August. The Dane hadn’t stirred, not having heard him. Val stepped closer and stood in the doorway. From there he could hear the man take a troubled breath, muffled behind his arms.  
           “August,” said the Ukrainian in a sincere, steadied voice. The sound made August whip his head up. His hands shot to his eyes, rubbing them.  
           “Val,” he responded on a sad laugh. When he lowered his hands, he revealed that his eyelids were a bit puffy and reddened. “I didn’t know you were awake. How long have you been there?”  
           “Long enough.” Val stepped further into the kitchen, taking a seat at the small table, across from his friend. The glass on the table was only a quarter full. “What’s the matter?”  
           August shrugged, unable to keep his eyes off of the table. “I couldn’t sleep,” he lied.  
           Val leaned closer. This made the Dane straighten himself in his seat, expression a tad standoff-ish. “I know something’s wrong, August. You never cry.”  
           “Well, that’s not true. I cried at the end of—”  
           “You know what I mean.”  
           The Dane looked like he wanted to argue, but then he closed his mouth and lowered his gaze back to the table.  
           “I don’t want to pry. I’ll leave you alone if you want, but . . . I’m worried about you. You can talk to me if you want to get something off your chest.”  
           August gave his head a gentle shake. He was silent in picking up the wine glass, but instead of drinking from it, he sloshed the wine inside. For a few seconds, they were both silent and still, the only movement coming from the wine as it tried to settle again. August kept his dark green eyes locked on the red liquid, Val’s hazel on August’s face. It was hard to define his facial expression, with sad eyes and the smallest of bitter smiles on his thin lips.  
           _He won’t talk. Didn’t think he would._  
           Val sighed and prepared to stand up. “Look, I’ll leave you—”  
           “I knew a guy once.”  
           The words were sudden and they caught Val’s attention. He shifted to sit back down. Noticing this, August resumed gazing down into his glass.  
           “His name was . . .” He shook his head. “No, his name’s not important. All you need to know is that we were dormmates for about two years. Friends, even. He was . . . interesting. We both studied psychology at Carnegie Mellon. He got a bachelor’s degree. I wound up dropping out during my final year.”  
           _I never knew you went to college_ , Val wanted to say, but he bit his tongue. What if interrupting August caused him to stop talking? He wasn’t willing to risk it; this was already more information than he’d ever told him before.  
           “He had a boyfriend that he used as a case study. His name was Julian; he was always depressed and anti-social. Kept to himself and smoked pot most of the time, but frequented parties. I think my dormmate chose to be in a relationship with him to have an easier time studying his behavior.” August laughed, but it wasn’t so much out of pleasure as it was the recollection of a bittersweet memory. “You know, he always used to ask me who _my_ case study was. For the first year or so, I was telling the truth when I told him I didn’t have one yet. After that, how was I supposed to tell him it was _him_?  
           “I say he was interesting because, from the viewpoint of a wannabe psychologist, he was. He never said it, but I know he saw himself as a psychopath; no emotional connections, no remorse, narcissistic tendencies, the lot. He always made an effort to keep his distance from people like me—people who wanted to be friends with him. He’d only let them in, if you could even call it that, if they were useful to him. Like Julian.” He paused for a beat. “I was never useful in his eyes. But I liked him anyway. I liked that he was happy, that we’d met”—he frowned, still staring at his glass—“that he liked wine. That, he did share with me. We drank together, once. After that, I started watching him a lot closer than before, when he thought I wasn’t. I don’t mean I stalked him or anything. I only kept an eye on him. Watched his behavior, like he watched Julian’s. And you know what?”  
           Val said nothing, even when August finally looked at him. There were tears in the Dane’s eyes, or was it only the lighting in the room reflecting off of them?  
           “To this day, I still don’t think he was a psychopath. Far from well-adjusted, but not a psychopath. When Julian . . .” He gulped. “When Julian _died_ , he . . . Well, he changed. It was subtle; I doubt anyone but me even noticed. But it changed him. It _hurt_ him. I heard him cry, once, when he thought I was asleep. Or maybe he didn’t think I was asleep. He always was clever. Maybe it was his way of showing he trusted me.” August looked back at his glass and shook his head again. “I doubt it, though. As much as I wanted him to, he never cared about me. Because I was never useful.” Finally, the Dane took a sip of his wine.  
           Val let his eyes fall onto the table. He wasn’t sure what to say. It wasn’t until August put the glass back down that he said, before he could stop himself, “Did you love him?”  
           August shot him a weird look, of both offense and uncertainty.  
           “It’s all right, you know, if . . . if you did. I’m not judging or anything. You seem sad, so, I’m only . . . assuming.”  
           The stare lasted a few seconds more before August took a breath. He gazed off at nothing, appearing to contemplate the question. Finally, he answered, “I don’t know. Maybe I only liked him, and my heart went and got the wrong idea. Either way . . . I don’t know. Something hurts, for some reason.”  
           “Why don’t you reach out to him?”  
           The Dane let out the same bittersweet laugh and once again rocked his head from side to side. “ _Nej_ ,” he lamented, “he wouldn’t want to see me again. I don’t even think he still remembers me.”  
           “Do you know where he is now?”  
           He shrugged. “Far as I can tell, he’s a writer. I guess he’s still in the city. Might not be, though.” Then he took another deep breath. “But, you know what?”  
           “What?”  
           “He did have this . . . one thing that he liked. It was unusual. Peculiar.”  
           Val leaned closer against the table, tilting his head in intrigue. “Yeah?”  
           “I was reminded of it by, well, that stupid game we played earlier this month.”  
           “You mean Bashful Bunny?”  
           “Yeah. The whole thing with ‘Doomsdays’ that he kept going on about.”  
           “What about it?”  
           “Well, my dormmate . . .” He shrugged. “It’s probably a coincidence, but he always used to go on about some sort of ‘rule’. The ‘Doomsday rule’, I think it was, by some . . . Conway something or other. I never understood it, but he tried to teach it to me several times. It has something to do with certain days in the calendar, which always fall on a certain weekday in certain years, or . . . something like that.” Again. “I don’t know. It was weird. But those days were referred to as ‘Doomsdays’. He was always happiest on Doomsdays.”  
           Val took this in. “You don’t think . . . ?”  
           “Nah. He never liked video games. I don’t think he’d ever play one, much less take part in _making_ one.”  
           For a minute or two, both of them were quiet. August massaged his tired eyes as Val digested everything he’d heard. In a matter of minutes, he’d learned so much about his friend. He’d gone to college, studied psychology, had another best friend: a roommate who he was possibly in love with. All things Val had never known about him before. Out of the blue, he felt guilty.  
           _How much does he know about my past, anyway? I mean, I don’t have anywhere near as much to say, but still. Now doesn’t feel like an appropriate time to start talking about myself, though._  
           When August stood up, it caught Val off guard. He held his glass in his hand as he did. “Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. I’ve had that bottled up for years. Would’ve driven me mad, sooner or later.” Then he walked further into the kitchen. Val followed him with his eyes.  
           “ _Bud’ láska_ ,” he mumbled.  
           Standing in front of the sink, August glanced back at him. “No more of this, hmm? It’s about time I move on.”  
           Val nodded, then watched as the Dane poured the remainder of his wine down the drain.  
           “Do you want to drink the rest on the 30th,” he began, “or can I dump it, too?”  
           “Whoa,” Val exclaimed through a chuckle. “No need to be hasty, Kas. Let’s not waste money here.”  
           “Waste money?” August stepped over. With a smirk, he picked up the bottle. “I didn’t pay for this. It was my dormmate’s.”  
           “Ah.” Val looked at the label. “Would it make you feel better to dump it?”  
           “Probably.” He paced toward the sink again, bottle in hand. “Besides, it’s not regular wine.”  
           “What’s that supposed to mean?”  
           “It’s _stronger_ than most.”  
           As much as Val wanted to question that wording, he didn’t. Instead, he watched from his chair as the Dane tilted the bottle and began emptying the bottle. It glugged and sloshed as it poured down the drain. Once the flow of wine stopped, he shook it a few times to get any last droplets out. Then, he turned to Val.  
           “What should we do with the bottle?” he inquired.  
           “Show it off on stream on the 30 th,” Val recommended, “then smash it off the wall or something.”  
           “Brilliant.” August smirked. “I’ll have fun with that.” He put the bottle down on the table and stretched. “Anyway, I should go to sleep before I pass out. What time is it?”  
           Val pulled out his phone and looked at the clock. “4:16.”  
           “ _Scheisse_. I’m beat. You should go back to sleep, too.”  
           “I don’t know. I might stay up for a bit.”  
           August shrugged. “Your choice.” He walked to the doorway, but then stopped. He turned back and looked at Val. In a sincere voice, he then said, “ _Mange tak_ , Val.”  
           “Hmm?”  
           The Dane smiled, but didn’t answer. “Goodnight.”  
           “Goodnight.”  
           With that, August headed upstairs. Val continued to sit in the kitchen for a few minutes on his own, but ultimately decided to return to his room as well. He’d done what he needed to do: cheer August up. There was no reason to stay up any longer. When morning came, everything would be back to normal once more. Normal, but better, because now he could he sure that August’s happiness was genuine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read a little bit about what August is talking about in _[Wine at 3 AM](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13379241)_.  
>  **Phrases:**  
>  _Nej_ : No  
>  _Bud' láska (будь ла́ска)_ : You're welcome  
>  _Scheisse_ : exclamation of displeasure, sort of equivalent to "Shit"  
>  _Mange tak_ : Many thanks/thanks a lot


	5. Lure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 1 (January 19th, 2018): General touch-ups. Rewrote second-to-last segment.  
> Originally posted on May 8th, 2017.

On the 30th of every month, August and Val did their monthly “drinking game” stream. They usually took turns playing difficult games and switched when they screwed up. Then they’d take a drink and watch the other play until _they_ screwed up. It was always fun. The people in the chat would often get shitfaced with them.  
           It was up to August to buy the alcohol most of the time. This month, though, he found himself wrapped up late in a casual play-through of a game. He wanted to get it done, so when Val stepped down for a moment, he asked,  
           “If I tell you the name of the place, can you get the drinks this time?”  
           “Sure,” Val agreed. “I’ll use my phone as a GPS.”  
           The Dane told Val the location’s name and its general area, so he put it into his phone and found it on his GPS. He took his handheld camera with him to the car, setting it on the dashboard as he positioned his phone. Then he strapped himself in and turned on the headlights. It was almost midnight—almost the 30 th. Lucky, then, that the store August bought alcohol from was open into the late hours. He started recording, then started the car.  
           “Head west on Jane St. toward S 22nd St.,” said his phone to start him off. “Drive for 0.4 miles.”  
           “Hey, guys,” he spoke aloud as he drove. “Valcupine here. I’m making another vlog to show that I’m still alive. Going to get some liquor for tonight’s drinking game. While I’m driving, I figured I’d talk about what’s going on. What our plans are and whatnot.”  
           “Turn left onto S 18th St.,” announced his phone. He obeyed, allowing the device to guide him. “Drive for 0.7 miles.” Because it was raining, he turned on the windshield wipers. Every so often there were flashes of light and rumbles.  
           “Great, it’s storming . . . Ugh. I hate thunderstorms.” He shook his head and got back on track. “So, as it stands right now, the main question a lot of you seem to have is what Kas and I are doing with Bashful Bunny. If I’m being completely honest . . . well, the answer is: nothing.” He glanced at the camera and shrugged.  
           “Slight left onto St. Patrick St. Drive for 0.4 miles.”  
           “That’s a bit of an odd route, isn’t it? Um, anyway, we deleted the game—lost interest in it, too. It didn’t catch our attention, you know? As a game that we wanted to keep playing? So that’s done. We don’t have any plans to continue playing it, unfortunately.”  
           “Turn right onto Spring St.,” the GPS ordered. “Drive for 400 feet.” Val glanced at it, confused.  
           “Where exactly am I supposed to be going?” he murmured to himself. He decided to chalk it up to a navigation error, though, and obeyed it. “So, uh, for Halloween, we plan on letting you guys choose what we play.”  
           “Turn right onto Mountain St. Drive for 0.2 miles.”  
           “So keep your eyes out for a poll. Or maybe we’ll ask in a stream. I don’t know. For November, I’m planning a new speed-run. Early Christmas for you guys, huh?” He laughed.  
           “Keep left to continue on Parkwood Rd. Drive for 0.3 miles.”  
           “Wait, what?” Val turned left onto the aforementioned road and stopped the car. This part of Parkwood Road stretched on and on before him, surrounded by trees on either side. It was a dark path, with no street lights. If it wasn’t so late, not to mention rainy, he mightn’t be concerned about driving down it.  
            _Something’s not right_ , he thought. _This can’t be the route August takes._ He reached out to pick up his phone and call him, but hesitated. _He’s busy. I shouldn’t bother him. I mean, it can’t be that bad. It’s creepy, but it’s only a road. Get a grip._  
           Val shook himself and let out a breath. Then he resumed driving again, making a mental note to cut out that moment of hesitation when editing the vlog recording. “So, uh . . .” He had troubled regaining his footing. “What was I talking about? I’ve lost my train of thought . . . Eh . . . Something about speed-running?” He puzzled. “Yeah. Yeah, that . . . sounds about—”  
           “You have reached your destination,” announced the GPS’ cheery female voice.  
           Val slowed the car to a halt and stared at his phone. The arrow showing where he was placed him smack in the middle of this segment of Parkwood Rd. “That’s not where I told it to go,” he murmured with a nervous titter. “Good going, Val. You had one job, but somehow you . . . put the wrong address in.” _But I showed it to August and he confirmed it. What happened? Did I change it somehow by accident?_  
           The Ukrainian glanced up and scanned his surroundings. Even with the headlights, it was too dark to make out much other than the sight of the trees around him. In fact, he was certain there wasn’t anything else _to_ make out.  
           “ _Khuy na ne_ . . .”  
           “Turn off your headlights.”  
           Val snapped his mouth shut and glanced again at his GPS, hazel eyes wide in surprise. Sure enough, the newest instruction told him to turn off his headlights.  
           “What the . . . ? Uh, okay then . . .” With much reluctance, he obeyed the order. He turned on the cab light to make up for the darkness on the road in front of him. For a moment, all was silent but for the sound of heavy rain and the windshield wipers moving back and forth.  
           “You have reached your destination,” repeated the electronic voice.  
           Val’s hands gripped the steering wheel as tight as they could. “What the hell?” He picked up the camera and aimed it toward the screen of his phone to show his future viewers where he was. “What is this? Why has my phone led me here? I wanted to go to a specific liquor store, but it’s taken me here.” He aimed the camera around, pointing it out each of the windows. “There’s nothing here. And it’s told me to turn off my headlights. This is freaky. I don’t like this.” He set the camera back down, half-heartedly pointed it at himself, and again placed his hands on the steering wheel. “This is really weird.”  
           “Turn on your headlights.”  
           Val stared at his phone, but didn’t obey. Something wasn’t adding up. “What’s going on?” he asked again in an anxious breath.  
           “Turn on your headlights.”  
           “How does it know I didn’t? It’s not _connected_ to the car.”  
           “Turn on your headlights.”  
           Val glanced up at the darkness in front of him. He sat like that, frozen in place, for a few seconds.  
           “Turn on your headlights.”  
           He shook his head, slow at first but picking up pace. Then he draped his arm over the back of his seat and looked around to the back window. With a twist of the gearstick, he put the car in reverse.  
           “No way,” he mumbled, “fuck this. I don’t feel like getting murdered tonight. I’m getting out of here.” Before he could put his foot on the accelerator, though, he stopped. It’d been ever so faint, but he could’ve sworn he’d heard something outside, under the rain.  
            _It was only a tree or something_ , he tried to convince himself. _Storms make sounds like that, right? But it didn’t sound like a twig or anything . . ._ He hadn’t heard it well enough to make any guesses, but he knew the sound of wood splintering in the rain. It hadn’t been that. So what, then, could it have been?  
            _No . . . No, it wasn’t a sound that caught my attention._ Concern growing, he leaned somewhat closer to the dashboard and squinted his eyes. _I saw something in front of the car. A shadow. Something moved out there._  
           A deer. A bear. What the hell do we have in Pittsburgh? Nothing like that, right? Ah, I know. I bet it was only the windshield wipers and my imagination . . . Why don’t I believe that?  
           He looked closer. There was a faint rumble of thunder growing in the distance that only added to his growing tension. Then, it happened: a flash of lightning illuminated his surroundings. He only saw it for less than two seconds, but that was all he needed to feel himself flush with shock and terror.  
           Standing in front of the car was Bashful. His pink fur was soaked by the rain, as too was his dark blue suit. His ears hung over his head like long, floppy tendrils. His eyes were squinted, the same way they were always drawn. He looked like he was lunging forward. Then, darkness. Only a few seconds later, something heavy slammed into the hood of the car.  
           “ _Chort_!” he screamed, startled and frightened.  
           “Turn. On. Your. Headlights,” the GPS ordered once more, pausing as if there were periods between the words. Val glanced at it to find that there actually were. That was all it took for him to slam on the accelerator and drive backwards as fast as he could. Once he’d made it back to Mountain St., he was frantic in turning the car around. The camera slid off of the dashboard and fell into the under-dash space of the passenger seat, but he didn’t try to stop it. In a panic, he started driving back from whence he’d come.  
            _Oh God oh God oh God oh God. What the fuck was that? Was that real? What the fuck!_  
           “Turn around,” the GPS instructed over and over as he zoomed back to the main road. “Turn around.” When he finally got back a main road and started driving west, it suddenly changed its mind. “Head west on Arlington Ave. toward Julia St. Drive for 0.9 miles.”  
           With extreme reluctance, he followed the GPS’ new directions.  
           “Turn left onto E Warrington Ave. Drive for 200 feet.” A few seconds later: “You have reached your destination.”  
           Turning left one more time revealed the liquor store he’d told it in the first place.  
           Shaking somewhat, he picked the camera back up. “What the hell was that?” he asked, perturbed by what he’d experienced. “God, that was terrifying. I’m going to keep recording even though I have nothing else to say, in case my car gets stolen or I go missing. _Satana_.”  
           Trying not to let the frightening event phase him too much, he went into the store and bought a few bottles of alcohol. He returned to the car in a hurry, looking over his shoulders as he went. Driving home, he relied on memory rather than the GPS, not willing to risk it again.  
           “I need a drink more than ever,” he mumbled to himself.  
           When he finally got home, he got out of the car with the camera in hand. Using his phone as light, he examined the hood of the car.  
           “Look at that dent . . . What happened back there?” He pointed the camera back at himself. “Well, uh, I’m gonna go for now. I’ll update on this later.” Then, he stopped recording.  
           He locked the door once he was inside and leaned against it as he caught his breath. What happened still frightened him, not that he understood it. He felt he was lucky to have escaped with his life. God only knew what else he might’ve seen—what would’ve happened—if he’d turned on the headlights. He tried not to think too hard about whatever had hit the hood. It’d sounded like metal, but he had no clue what it could’ve been.  
           Having heard him enter, August stepped out from the kitchen. “ _Hej_ ,” he greeted. “What took you so long?”  
           Val looked at him. Something about his frightened look must’ve tipped the Dane off, as his expression turned into one of concern.  
           “Val?”  
           When he thought about it, he figured that it’d be easier to keep it from August. The last thing he wanted to do was make him worried about something that was over and done with. So he managed a small smile and told him, “I got lost.” He pushed past him and headed into the kitchen, where he put down the bag of liquor.  
           August stepped into the kitchen as well. He leaned against the doorframe as Val cracked open a bottle of vodka. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he pointed out. “Is everything all right?”  
           “Yeah. Everything’s fine.” He got out the glasses and poured two shots, handing one to August. Smiling up at his friend, wanting only to drink the frightening event out of his mind, he offered, “Let’s have a few drinks to get started, okay?”  
           August hesitated, uncertain, but was happy to let the topic go. So he took the shot from Val. “ _Skål_ ,” he said.  
           “ _Búd’mo_ ,” replied Val.  
           Together they clinked their glasses and downed their shots.  
           An hour later, they were downstairs streaming. Val had drank a lot more than usual. People in the chat noticed this. Between the two of them, Val was the one who had the most difficulty holding his liquor. He rarely drank more than a few shots. Tonight, though, he drank any chance he got. Some of the chat started to suspect that he was failing in-game on purpose.  
           “That’s silly,” he giggled. Both he and August were happy drunks, which made their drinking games that much more entertaining. As Val argued, though, he barreled over the side of a cliff in-game and died. He then started to laugh, a loud, hearty noise in contrast to what he preferred while sober.  
           “Oh, bullshit, _din dumme idiot_!” August taunted through his own chuckles. “You’ve got to be doing this on purpose! Gimme the controller. I’ll show you how it’s done!” Upon getting the controller, he proceeded to do exactly what Val did. As Val’s laughs intensified, he lowered his head in an amused shame, trying not to laugh as well.  
           “ _Idy na khuy_ ,” Val choked, nearly crying from laughter. “ _Zalupa_!”  
           “Hey,” August mock-argued, “ _sut min pik, din lille lort_! _Jeg knepper du og din hel familie_!”  
           The sheer level of joking fury in August’s voice caused Val to lurch forward in laughter. In doing so, he leaned against his muscular chest. He didn’t even know what the man had said to him, but whatever it was, it was the funniest damned thing he’d ever heard. August finally let himself laugh as well. As he did, he leaned his head against Val’s.  
           “Aww,” someone in the chat wrote. “Valgust is real!” That led a few of the other “Valgust” fans to chip in, all thoroughly enjoying seeing the two streamers snuggle up together. Val read their messages and, all at once, felt embarrassed.  
           “You wish,” he laughed, playing it off as a joke as he sat upright again.  
           “Your turn, dipshit.” August handed him the controller. For a moment, they stared at each other in silence.  
            _Something feels . . . different_ , Val realized. _Why do I feel so awkward?_ He glanced down at the controller. _I’m only realizing it now, but I’ve felt like this since he told me about his past, haven’t I? What is this?_  
           Val cleared his throat and took the controller.  
            _Must be because I’m drunk. It’s bound to be nothing . . ._  
           They continued streaming for half an hour more before August finally noticed Val’s increasing discomfort and fatigue. When he did, he seemed to decide that they should call it a night.  
           “We ought to stop before we both die of alcohol poisoning,” he told the viewers. “Everyone be safe! We’ll see you tomorrow!”  
           Val was only half-conscious, so he didn’t realize they’d stopped streaming until August stood up. With bleary eyes, he looked up at the blond.  
           “Man,” August groaned, mid-stretch. “I need to piss.”  
           Val let out a small laugh. He watched as the Dane jolted.  
           “Oh! The bottle!” he exclaimed. “We forgot about the bottle! _Scheisse_.”  
           “We could always break it now,” moaned the Ukrainian. “Y’know, for the hell of it . . .”  
           “I’ll be back.” Handling his drunkenness much better than Val, he dashed out of the basement. Almost a minute later, he returned with the wine bottle in hand. Val rotated his chair with his legs, to face the wall across from their setup.  
           “Can you break it?” he asked, words slurred somewhat.  
           “Yeah, sure. How hard could it be?” As if he were preparing to swing at an oncoming ball, the Dane gave the bottle a few small strokes. Then, holding the neck in one hand, he slammed it against the wall. They heard the sound of hollow glass clinking, but to their surprise, it didn’t break. There were no glass shard exploding everywhere, never mind any shattering sound.  
           “Oh.” He tried again—giggled when it didn’t break. “I think I’m too drunk to give enough force.”  
           Val giggled as well, even snorted in indecent amusement. “Need a hand?” he asked. Somehow, he found the question even more hilarious, so he laughed at himself.  
           “I wouldn’t mind . . .”  
           Realizing that August was serious, he pushed himself out of his chair. When he stood, he wobbled on his feet, but managed to keep his balance. Then he stepped closer. “All right. How do we do this?”  
           “Wrap your hands around mine, I guess. We’ll both swing together. That might work.”  
           “Might?”  
           August shrugged. “I studied psychology, not physics.”  
           Val smirked, but when he looked down at August’s hand, gripping the bottles neck, it slipped.  
            _There’s that awkwardness again . . ._  
           Flustered, the Ukrainian started rubbing his hands down on his pant legs. “Palms are sweaty,” he explained with an awkward chuckle.  
           “It’s fine,” August mumbled.  
            _God, even_ he _sounds awkward . . ._ Val glanced up at him. Their eyes locked. There were a few seconds where they both stayed frozen, in some sort of trance together.  
           “Um . . . The bottle. Right.” Val pulled his eyes away at last and wrapped his hands around August’s.  
           “All right,” said the Dane. “You ready?”  
           “Ready as I’ll ever be . . .”  
           August moved the bottle gently back and forth. Then, hand tensing under Val’s, he exclaimed, “ _Pøj pøj_!” Together they swung the bottle at the wall. Finally, it broke, though not quite as explosively as they’d hoped. The shards of thick black glass flew apart in big chunks, hitting the carpet. Val wobbled, off-kilter from the swing. Before he could fall, though, August caught the edges of his gray overshirt and held him up.  
           “Saved your life,” he joked.  
           Val tried to laugh, but couldn’t. He was close to August now, too close. The blond must’ve noticed as well, as his own grin slipped away. Staring up into his eyes, the Ukrainian could hear only his heartbeat.  
           “Um . . .” Val stammered, trying to find something to say to break the tension. There was nothing, though. He couldn’t think through the haze of drunkenness and fluster.  
           “We drank way too much,” muttered the Dane.  
           Val averted his eyes, lowering them to August’s chest. It was broad and firm, looking so even through his tight blue quarter-sleeved shirt. Unsure of what was going on in his own head, he flicked his eyes back up to his friend’s. This managed to get a shiver from him.  
           “Val.” There was reluctance in his voice, but under it . . .  
            _What’s he thinking? What am_ I _thinking? I have a feeling we’re about to do something stupid . . . but do I want to stop it?_  
           They searched each other’s eyes, for what Val didn’t know. He thought he was all right with whatever they had now, but then he noticed August leaning in closer. His movement was slow, or it only seemed that way because he was drunk. While one half of Val was uncertain, the other was curious.  
            _Is he . . . about to kiss me? This is so sudden . . ._  
           Regardless, he felt himself moving closer as well, inch by inch. There came a mutual pause when they were close enough to feel each other’s breaths. What Val had trouble determining was whether it felt right or if that was only a side effect of the alcohol.  
            _Should I risk it? Chances are, we won’t be able to come back from this . . . I mean, kissing your best friend is kind of a game-changer._  
           “Val?” August’s voice was a mere breath. It was warm against Val’s face. The Ukrainian met his gaze through his glasses. A moment’s thought. Then, finally, he decided: he gave his head a small nod.  
           “Yeah,” he whispered. He wanted to say more, but his heart got stuck in his throat before he could.  
           When their lips finally met, they did so gently. It was a coy gesture, soft and sweet.  
            _Oh, my God. It feels right. I didn’t know if it would, but it feels right._  
           He moved his arms over August. Clutching his hair, he felt it as it moved the ring on his middle finger. The Dane pecked him again, a little harder. His bigger arms went around Val’s slender waist, pulling him somewhat closer. Back and forth they went, returning wet kisses. The Ukrainian’s thoughts turned to mush. He felt safe and loved in the arms of his friend—housemate— _partner_. His infatuation, though no doubt sudden, felt long overdue. How had he never even had a _crush_ on August through the years? Not once? It wasn’t until now that he thought how strange that was. The way this felt now was like he’d loved him from the start, but somehow never realized it.  
           They kept at it for only a few seconds more before August pulled his head away. It took a few seconds for Val to realize he was now looking back at their setup. He glanced at it himself, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.  
           “August?”  
           The Dane looked back at him and fidgeted in place. “I thought I saw something, but I guess it was nothing,” he explained. Val flashed him a coquettish smile, only to be surprised when he was picked up in a bridal carry. Though he wanted to say something, nothing came to mind. So, instead, he hummed and laid his tired head against his friend’s strong shoulder.  
           August carried Val up to the second floor and into his bedroom. When they got into the dark room, he tried to lay Val down. He was so drunk himself, though, that this threw him off balance.  
           “Shit,” he gasped as he flopped forward with Val. The Ukrainian ended up on his bed, but with August leaning against him. They laughed about this at first, but then the mood changed once more. Soon, they’d stopped laughing.  
           Rather than try anything, August apologized and tried to stand. Val caught his arm, though, in a loose, drunk grip.  
           “No,” he whined, “August . . .”  
           August gave him a troubled expression, though not without a touch of bittersweetness. He reached out and moved a strand of Val’s red bangs over his glasses before removing and placing them on the nightstand.  
           “You’re drunk,” he said. “If you remember this when you're sober and don’t regret it, then . . . I don’t know. We’ll see what happens, hmm?” He cocked the corner of his mouth up and gently stroked the Ukrainian’s cheek.  
           Val was too tired to argue, almost too tired to not know why August said that. Then, it dawned on him.  
            _Does he think we’d wind up . . ._ He couldn’t finish the thought. _Probably good he doesn’t stay, then . . . I don’t know if I want to go that far with him . . ._  
           The Dane stood up and headed for the bedroom door. Before closing it behind himself, he told Val, “Get some rest. Goodnight.”  
           The Ukrainian smiled a bit. “Goodnight.” After the door closed, he laid his head back. He fell asleep, and didn’t wake up until one in the afternoon the following day. When he awoke, he of course had a horrible hangover. Despite being groggy, he put on his glasses and stumbled downstairs.  
           As he poured himself a glass of cold water to tend to his dry throat, he remembered the events of the prior night.  
            _Wow. Did that actually happen?_  
           He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, but some part of him told him it was good. Though he’d been plastered, he remembered everything with stunning clarity. He reached up and touched his lips, remembering how August’s had felt against them.  
            _My only real question is why that didn’t happen_ sooner _. What happened last night to make it happen?_  
           No, it wasn’t last night that did it. It was when he told me he might’ve been in love with his dormmate. Was that why I never thought about him that way? Because I wasn’t sure of his sexuality? Or because I’m still pretty sure I’m interested in girls?  
           It was confusing, but he couldn’t deny how right it’d felt.  
            _If we kissed again, sober . . . would it still feel right?_  
           Whatever the case, he needed to talk to August about it, the sooner the better.  
            _But what if_ he _doesn’t remember it? Oh, of course he would; he was less drunk than I was._ Val looked around. _Wait. Where is he? He’s not downstairs, but his bedroom door was open, so he’s awake. Oh. He must be in the basement. Duh._  
           Figuring he should check in to see whether their status quo had changed, Val took his water with him to the basement. The first thing he noticed was that August wasn’t in down there. It wasn’t this that made his blood run cold, though. It was what he noticed next, which almost made him drop his glass. On wobbling feet, he made his way over to the computer and stared at the screen. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. All at once, he found himself filled with terror.  
           The only open window was Bashful Bunny. “Uh-oh,” read the textbox above Bashful’s head. “Where’s Buttons gone?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Phrases:**  
>  _Khuy na ne (Хуй на не)_ : No fucking way  
>  _Chort (чорт)_ : Damn/Hell  
>  _Satana (сатана)_ : Holy cow (slang)  
>  _Hej_ : Hey  
>  _Skål_ : Cheers  
>  _Búd'mo (бу́дьмо)_ : Cheers  
>  _Din dumme idiot_ : You stupid idiot  
>  _Idy na khuy (Іди на хуй)_ : Go to a dick/Go get fucked  
>  _Zalupa (Залупа)_ : Dickhead  
>  _Sut min pik_ : Suck my dick  
>  _Din lille lort_ : You little shit  
>  _Jeg knepper du og din hel familie_ : I'll fuck you and your whole family  
>  _Scheisse_ : exclamation of displeasure, sort of equivalent to "Shit"  
>  _Pøj pøj_ : Good luck/Break a leg


	6. Encounter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 1 (January 20th, 2018): General touch-ups.  
> Originally posted on May 11th, 2017.

Val sat down in his chair and gawked at the screen. He couldn’t believe his eyes. How was the game running? August had deleted it! Their stream was live again, the chat already well aware of what was going on. Most of them thought this was cool, but Val had other thoughts. Something about the game’s presence and the contents of the textbox put a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something was wrong.  
           He hardly acknowledged the chat as he opened Discord and tried to start a voice call with August.  
           “Pick up,” he mumbled, shaking somewhat from anxiety. “August, please.” To his simultaneous surprise and relief, he did.  
           “Hey,” August greeted. The sound of his Danish voice soothed Val’s nerves.  
           “August, where are you?” Val asked through a weary sigh.  
           “I’m in the car.”  
           “Why?”  
           “We need groceries, so I’m going to go get some. I would’ve brought you along, but I thought you might need some rest after last night. I only left a minute ago, actually.”  
           Val decided to cut right to the chase. “Did you download the game again?”  
           “What game?”  
           “Bashful Bunny.”  
           August guffawed. “No way! Why would I do that?”  
           “It’s open right now.”  
           The Dane’s tone became serious. “It’s what?”  
           “I came downstairs, you were gone, and it was running. We’re live again.”  
           “Oh, _for helvede_!” August cursed. “You’re screwing with me, right?”  
           “I wish I was.”  
           August groaned, and as he did, Val glanced at the chat. The majority seemed to be under the impression that this was scripted. Some talked about how interesting it was, while others complained about them jumping aboard the “hype” train. The latter group griped that they expected better.  
           “This isn’t scripted,” Val snapped back at them.  
           “What are you saying?” August asked.  
           “The chat thinks this is scripted.”  
           “Wait, we’re seriously live right now? End the stream, man!”  
           “They deserve to know what’s—”  
           “ _Jesus_!”  
           Following August’s shriek was the faint sound of screeching tires. A second later, the loud slam of the car smashing into something. He heard glass smashing—the windshield? Then, silence.  
           Val flinched at the loud noises when they happened. His blood ran cold. The chat stopped moving for a few seconds. Everyone appeared as stunned as he was.  
           “August?”  
           There was no response.  
           The Ukrainian started to panic. “August? August, are you all right? Answer me!”  
           Nothing but the faint sound of the turn signal indicator clicking.  
           “Shit! Hang in there, I’m coming to find you!”  
           Without even bothering to end the Discord call, Val leapt to his feet and bolted upstairs. He grabbed the gray shirt he usually wore over his red one and threw it on. As he left, he didn’t bother to lock the front door. There wasn’t time for that. Instead, he pulled it shut and took off down the street, sprinting like mad. He only hoped he knew the route August would’ve taken to the store. If he was correct, then it would only take him about five minutes to get to him while running.  
           He ran, and ran, and ran. When he came to a street that he needed to cross—S 24 th Street—he decided to book it. In his haste, he didn’t care about his surroundings. That was why, when a car screeched to a halt only inches from him, he almost had a heart attack. He took a moment to look into the windshield at the person who could’ve killed him. It was hard to see through the windshield, but he could make out a young man with dark, messy hair. He was wearing a suit, staring at Val in utter surprise. There was someone lying in the backseat, but Val could make out next to nothing of them.  
           Now doubly panicked, Val fumed and cursed at the driver, “ _Poshel na khuy_ , _suka_!” Then he kicked the bumper and took off running, continuing to August’s aid. He had to be getting close. How far could August have driven?  
           Two streets later, he finally found their car. It had crashed almost head-on into a telephone pole a street down S 26 th Street. Smoke was billowing out from under the hood; broken glass surrounded the ground around it. Val, panting from fatigue, gave one final push as he rushed toward the car.  
           “ _August_!” he screamed as he ran. When he reached the side of the vehicle, he immediately looked through the driver side window. August’s phone was in the GPS holder on the dashboard. The airbag, blown out and deflated. The driver side door hung open a crack. The only thing missing was August himself.  
           Val stepped back and looked down the street. “August? August!”  
           But there was no answer. So he grabbed August’s phone from the dashboard and called 9-1-1. He reported the car crash, trying to stay calm but failing, and also told them that the driver was missing. A police cruiser arrived a short time later. The officers searched the surrounding area, but couldn’t find August. After he gave them information for their records, they drove him back home.  
           After stepping inside and locking the door, Val only stood in the middle of the hallway. He didn’t know what to do, much less what actually happened. He needed to know where August was. He couldn’t rest until he figured that out.  
            _Something happened to him, I know it. Does it have anything to do with what I experienced last night? What if this game really is as dangerous as people said?_  
           The last place he expected to get his answer was from the chat of the stream he’d neglected to turn off. He’d only gone into the basement for . . . Why _had_ he gone into the basement? When he thought about it, he didn’t have an answer. He was so shaken that he found himself wandering the house in a daze. He’d glanced at the chat by accident, but what he saw there caught his attention.  
           “What was that other voice on the call?” “Why’s the chat going wild? What did I miss?” “Was that the same guy who does the voice for Bashful?” “This is a wicked plot!” “Did Bashful just kidnap Kas?” “Are they friends with the actor?” “Holy shit, this is getting intense.” “Look at the game!” “This is stupid.” “The game changed.” “Why’s everyone calling Kas ‘August’ all of a sudden?” “Spooky!” “LOL WTF?” “Val, look at the textbox!”  
           Val turned his attention to the Bashful Bunny window. He wondered how he hadn’t seen this first. In the game, he saw Bashful in a car. It looked like the same car that had almost hit him. It bounced a bit as the wheels spun, making it look like it was driving.  
           The textbox read, “Beep, beep! Get out of the way! I’ve got a Dane in the backseat who needs some good ol’ TLC!”  
           If Val was any less stoic, he might’ve fainted.  
            _I can’t be reading this right. The person I saw in the backseat of that car . . . Was that August? It couldn’t have been. I would’ve recognized him! But it was so hard to make them out through the windshield . . ._  
           The man in the suit must’ve looked so surprised because he was the one behind everything. Is he watching right now?  
           Val turned his eyes onto the camera and stared. Without warning the game screen went black, so he looked at it. A new textbox popped up.  
           “3 AM sharp, October 31 st. Use your last eleven hours wisely. If you leave the basement or turn off your stream before then, August dies. See you on Doomsday!”  
           Val didn’t know what to do. So, desperate, he asked the chat. What few of them still believed him (or at least decided to play along) told him to call the police. That was his only option . . . but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Something told him that they wouldn’t believe him, either. So he started pacing around the basement, running his hands through his hair. It was obvious that whoever was behind this was watching the stream. Was there no out? He turned to the camera.  
           “If you’re watching,” he pleaded, “please don’t hurt him. Leave August out of this! I’m sorry for whatever we did! Let him go, please!”  
           Nothing changed. Val continued to pace for a few hours. He would’ve expected people to leave the stream, but as the minutes passed, more and more arrived. News was spreading fast about him having his official “Bashful Bunny kill date”. They were eager, with no idea of the terror he felt.  
           He wasn’t sure what he did to pass the time, but next thing he knew, it was two thirty in the morning. He should’ve been exhausted, but he was too frightened. By now, though, his fear had started to become spite.  
           Staring right at the camera, he declared, “I think you’re bluffing.” He didn’t expect a response. So, when he got one, it startled him.  
           “Does this look like I’m bluffing?” a new textbox asked. Following it was a picture of August, arms chained to a wall like some sort of medieval torture victim. He looked otherwise unharmed, though unconscious.  
            _Oh, God. Please let him only be unconscious._  
           Another textbox then inquired, “Or how about this?”  
           Val’s eyes widened at the next image. In the back of the picture was his own bedroom. The main focus of the image, though, was Bashful Bunny himself. Squinty eyes, pink fur and all. The same thing he’d caught a glimpse of on Parkwood Road.  
           Some of the viewers got kicks out of the rabbit. Under other circumstances, it could’ve been considered corny, even cringe-worthy. But Val couldn’t get past the fact that it was in _his_ bedroom. It was only two floors above him right now, eagerly awaiting three o’clock. There was no escape.  
           One last textbox appeared. Its message was the most frightening Val had yet received:  
           “You should never leave your front door unlocked.”  
           Val had never been so terrified in his entire life. Yet, still, his viewers didn’t believe him. Even if they did, what could they do? Calling the cops wasn’t an option. How could he explain that there was a man dressed like a pink rabbit waiting upstairs to kill him? They’d think he was tripping out on some sort of illegal drug, even though he was sober. He wished he wasn’t.  
           If he wasn’t so terrified, the amount of people watching would’ve pleased him—the counter was at an all-time high. By now, everyone in the chat was either laughing or spamming the “kappa” emote. They were amused by the show that he was unwittingly putting on.  
           2:58 AM. His time was ticking. All he wanted was for them to believe him.  
           “GG, Val!” wrote someone in chat.  
           “Two more minutes, guys! Hype!” said another one.  
           His mind was running circles in terror. They’d think his death was fake, in the biggest case of dramatic irony he’d ever heard of. It’d be mere entertainment to them, as was his life beforehand. They’d comment on how fake it looked, because it wouldn’t look like it did in the movies. He likely wouldn’t even be in the frame.  
           His real pain came from the fact that his entire life had led up to this. It was hard to believe that this was all because he’d decided to play an indie game.  
           “Please,” he gasped to the microphone. His hand was on his mouse due to sheer reflex, though he didn’t need it. “I swear this isn’t some sort of Halloween event. I’m about to die!”  
           More kappa emotes were sent his way.  
           “You should be an actor. You’re great at staying true to character!” one person commented. They followed their remark up with a kappa as well.  
           “This isn’t a joke!” Val’s hazel eyes started to well up behind his glasses, but he wasn’t crying yet.  
           When he heard footsteps on the floor above him, he tensed up and went dead silent. The chat slowed down, but he wasn’t paying attention to it anymore.  
           “Did you guys hear that?” he asked the chat in a low voice. If anyone replied, he didn’t notice.  
           2:59 AM. The basement stairs creaked. Val had only sixty seconds to live.  
           When the basement door opened, Val’s first reflex was to pick up the nearest object in self-defense. In stepped his worst fear: Bashful. Whoever was in the costume was at least six feet tall, towering well over Val, only five feet seven inches. He even had rabbit paws, meaning his hands were more like mitts. There was something in his right hand, but Val couldn’t tell what. Whatever it was, it was going to be used to kill him. But he wasn’t about to go down without a fight. He glanced at what he’d picked up. It was a game box. It would have to do.  
           He threw the rectangular box at Bashful. As expected, it hit him in the face and bounced off without much effect. The rabbit rushed him. Val screamed and kicked. He got the rabbit in the gut, but whoever was in the costume was muscular. It felt like he was kicking a wall; again, little effect. Bashful raised his right hand. He smashed whatever he was holding against the side of the streamer’s head. Next thing Val knew—or rather, _didn’t_ —he was unconscious and crumpling to the floor.  
           Bashful stared down at Val for a beat, then two. When he finally looked up, he reached over and stopped the stream.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Phrases:**  
>  _For helvede_ : Fuck's sake  
>  _Poshel na khuy (Пошел на хуй)_ : Fuck you (Russian)  
>  _Suka (Сука)_ : Bitch


	7. Denial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 1 (January 22nd, 2018): General touch-ups. Added actual sex scene rather than implied. Split chapter into two.  
> Originally posted on May 12th, 2018.

The past year of Maxime Aleshire’s life had been unlike any other. He’d gone from living alone in a cheap Boston apartment to living in a lavish home in the Glen Hazel district of Pittsburgh. Not the richest neighborhood, but still better than his apartment. Better than Brisbane, where he’d been born and raised, too. If the house were any less modest, he likely would’ve been even more flustered by it. It was already near-mansion-esque, with its size and large second storey balcony.  
           Needless to say, money was no longer a problem. He and Cameron were practically swimming in it. Whatever Max wanted, he got. In all honesty, he knew he’d never get used to this pampered lifestyle.  
           “What do you want?” Cameron would ask.  
           “Nothing more than this,” Max would answer. He wasn’t used to having his way. When asked what he wanted, he considered instead what he needed. But he already had so much more than that. Even so, Cameron would still go out of his way to win him over with materialistic things from time to time. While Max felt bad about this, he also felt pleased. Deep down, some part of him was greedier than ever.  
           Cameron Fenn, his partner, was still a writer, as he’d been when they met last April. He focused on it less and less, though. Most of his time he spent either working out or contributing ideas to his project with Max. The project was an innocent-looking indie game with a malicious intent. Its stupidity was far from lost on the Aussie, but he found himself forced into it.  
           Cameron would occasionally kill for sport, but as of late, he’d been killing more than ever. He had to have killed at least eight or nine people because of the game’s algorithm alone. Max knew he was helping a serial killer, and wanted to say he was only doing so to protect himself. The truth of the matter, though, was that he helped because he _wanted_ to. He didn’t want people to die because of him, but if that was a side effect he had to deal with, then he would.  
           The game, disguised as a child-friendly educational deal, featured Cameron’s old character. It was a tall, pink anthropomorphic rabbit named Bashful Bunny. Max did Bashful’s voice, as well as the art for the game. Though, his instruction was to do his worst with the art, to make it seem innocent. This was difficult for Max, who’d been a freelance digital artist before Cameron whisked him away. Though, he and the writer always got a laugh out of the various terrible ways he could draw Bashful.  
           The rabbit despised liars, as did Cameron. So, the game kept track of how many times the player lied. When it reached a certain count, a bad ending would occur. Cameron was only supposed to kill players when this happened. This turned out to be difficult, though. Few players would play the game with such dishonesty. It came as a relief to Max at first.  
            _Maybe_ , he thought like a fool, _he’ll slow down when it comes to murder._  
           Then came Cameron’s restlessness. Hell, Max wouldn’t back down from calling it madness, even. It was interesting to watch, for a while, how the writer would cope. He liked killing people on doomsdays, according to John Conway’s algorithm. There was an extra precautionary step, though, to his kills, in that he needed to know their birthday first. If their birthday fell on a doomsday, he wouldn’t be able to kill them until then. Or, at least, that’s what Max had determined to be his method.  
           It was difficult for Cameron to get everything to align sometimes, though. During times like that, like when the game became meaningless, things sometimes became . . . _unsettling_ around the house. Often Max wouldn’t notice anything was wrong until he found Cameron doing something unusual. He’d made a mental list of the most peculiar and/or out of character things he’d seen the writer do. It went something like this:  
                      Sitting in the kitchen with a bath towel draped over his head, acknowledging nothing for three and a half hours.  
                      Mercilessly stabbing a cantaloupe (or other melon) with a knife.  
                      Drinking a shitload of wine. (Now whenever Max saw Cameron break out a bottle of wine, it always made him nervous.)  
                      Having a loud argument with himself.  
                      Following Max around and mimicking him without a word.  
           At best, Max would call a Cameron a “complicated soul”. At worst, he’d say these periods of instability made him fear for his life. The writer hadn’t made killing seem like a compulsion of his. The more time Max spent with him, though, the more he came to realize it was almost an _obsessive_ compulsion.  
           He stayed with Cameron because he felt _something_ for him. What, though, he was unsure. Since they had sex every other night, he figured he should refer to him as his boyfriend. Try as he may, he couldn’t bring himself to do so. Cameron felt something for him too, it seemed, but he didn’t think it was love. On his end, Max still wasn’t sure he was actually gay. Admitting that he and Cameron were in a relationship felt too much like coming out of the closet to him.  
           Despite their feelings, Max couldn’t shake the fear that Cameron would murder him sooner or later. Watching him crack little by little doing odd things didn’t comfort him. So when Cameron asked to tweak the game’s behavior, he accepted, with little concern for any unfortunate players.  
           The game now fired them the player’s IP address as soon as it ran. On top of that, any info they revealed to Bashful throughout the game. Once that information was in Cameron’s hands, the game was on. He’d toy with them with the game, then hunt them down. Before killing them, he’d always announce the words, “Happy Doomsday!”  
           The writer’s murdering spree had grown rapidly out of hand. If Max wasn’t living with him, he would’ve let his good heart convince him that the man needed to be stopped. As it stood now, though, what concerned him most was the Bashful costume. Cameron would almost always put it on before doing something crazy to his current victim. It creeped Max out. Every time he saw him putting on the rabbit head, he felt a shiver go down his spine, because it usually meant someone was about to die.  
           Cameron had struck gold this month, on the day of Max’s birthday. They’d been celebrating it . . . or, more accurately, Max had been dreading it. He always felt nervous on his birthday, since it was on October 10 th—a doomsday. He was twenty-one now; this was only his second birthday with Cameron. One of these years, Cameron was going to kill him with the knife he used to cut the birthday cake.  
           They’d been celebrating Max’s birthday when a streamer who lived only three miles away started playing their game. To be more accurate, _two_ streamers: Valcupine and KasGaming. When Max saw their usernames, he’d frowned. He didn’t like many streamers, but Val and Kas were his two favorites. What were the odds of _them_ playing their damned game?  
           Cameron wasn’t a fan of video games in general, thus didn’t know any streamers. At least, that was what Max thought. When he showed Cameron their unlucky players, though, the writer tensed. It took a few seconds for him to realize it was KasGaming, the blond Dane, that had such an effect.  
           “What’s wrong?” Max had asked.  
           “I know him,” had been Cameron’s response. Any further information, the Aussie had been unable to pry.  
           He figured it was due to this that Cameron decided to dismiss the actual game. In fact, he sabotaged it outright, using the connection he established to their computer. The writer was a master when it came to using a hacking tool called Metasploit. He often tried to teach Max how to use it, but the artist could never understand it, much less on a Linux.  
           Cameron changed how the game ran. To be fair, they didn’t have time to wait for the streamers to complete the game this time. They only had until October 31 st, the last doomsday of the month. It seemed poetic to kill them then.  
           When Cameron found out that Val’s birthday was on April 4th—both a doomsday _and_ the day of Max’s suicide attempt a year and a half prior—he was both elated and disappointed. Elated because of the coincidence: April 4 th was an important day to him. It was the day that Max’s new life, with him, began. Disappointed because it was a doomsday. This meant he couldn’t kill the streamer until then, otherwise he wouldn’t get full satisfaction from the kill. The Dane, whose real name turned out to be August Lund, though . . . His birthday remained up in the air. No one had any clue what day it was. Cameron tried to coax Val into giving it away, but to no avail, as August had resisted. This uncertainty only seemed to excite Cameron more. Max hadn’t seen the writer so amused planning murder in months.  
           Things were rather tame until the night of October 29th. In fact, Cameron had spoken little of the two streamers. Max had been foolish enough to think that Cameron had given up. Then, he almost had a heart attack when he saw him wearing the Bashful costume again.  
           “Jesus Christ, Cameron,” he complained after jolting in the dining chair he sat in. “You scared the hell out of me, mate. Take that shit off.”  
           “We’re going for a drive,” he told Max, less an offer than an order.  
           Max, tired since it was almost midnight, sighed. “Why?”  
           “Get dressed.”  
           “Why do you always make me get involved in your insanity, Cameron?”  
           “Because I know you love it.”  
           The Aussie raised a brow in doubt. Then he got up and dressed in his formal black suit. He was afraid to argue while Cameron wore the fuzzy pink accessories that made up the costume. Who knew what he’d do to him if he showed disobedience?  
           Next thing he knew, he and Cameron were parking on the side of a desolate street surrounded by trees. Cameron, still wearing the costume (Max was only amazed that he could see well enough to drive in the dark with the head on), turned off the headlights and stepped out. He stood on the middle of the road and gazed off into the distance. Max sat still for a moment. It was storming outside. Cameron was fast drenched out there, but he didn’t move.  
            _Not keen on catching a cold_ , Max thought, _but then again . . . What’s he doing out there?_  
           So he stepped out into the rain as well. He approached Cameron, looked at him, then looked off to where he was staring. There was nothing there. Only darkness.  
           “What are we waiting for?” he asked Cameron.  
           “Watch.” As Max obeyed Cameron’s command, he saw that he now held his cellphone in his left hand. His right hand was extended toward Max, who had to take a second to realize he wanted him to pull off the pink rabbit paw. When he did, Cameron glanced down at his phone and started tapping on the dimmed screen.  
            _How can he see what he’s doing?_  
           “Val will come to us.”  
           “Oh, sure.” Max rolled his eyes. “How’s that going to happen?”  
           “I have ways,” was Cameron’s answer. They returned to the car and leaned against it in the chilly October night. Max shivered, crossing his arms over his chest. Cameron looked at him, which made him flinch.  
           “Don’t look at me while you’re wearing that head,” he warned. “The eyes creep me out.”  
           “You’re the one who designed them this way,” Cameron teased.  
           “ _You’re_ the one who said ‘squinty eyes’.”  
           “Touché.”  
           A few minutes later, Max heard a car approaching from down the street. There were no headlights, though. Cameron tapped something else into his phone. Soon after, the car slowed to a halt only a few feet away from them. The inner cab light was on. Max could only just make out Val sitting in the driver’s seat.  
           “Holy shit.” He hadn’t doubted Cameron, but Val’s presence still surprised him.  
           Cameron handed his phone off to the Aussie. “Give me your cane.”  
           “What?”  
           “Quick. Keep telling him to turn on his headlights.”  
           “I”—Max didn’t have time to finish talking before Cameron took his metal cane and started marching toward Val’s car. “Cameron.”  
           No answer. Instead, Cameron composed himself and stood still in front of the vehicle. Max looked down at the phone. He was no master, but he saw the code Cameron had entered before and copied it.  
           “Turn on your headlights,” he wrote, uncertain of what effect it would have.  
           In the car, he saw Val glance at the dashboard. It was then that he realized what Cameron had done.  
            _That crazy son of a bitch. How the hell did he hack his phone?_  
           He kept typing the command. As much as he wanted to deny it, there was a part of him that felt exhilarated with this kind of control. Knowing that by mimicking a few lines of code, he was terrifying someone. It was a twisted kind of fun to him. So rare was it that Cameron gave him an involved position like this. Should he thank him for that, or ask him to give him power more often?  
           When Val still didn’t respond and it started to look like he might flee, the Aussie threw caution to the wind.  
           “Turn. On. Your. Headlights,” he wrote, using periods to force the electronic voice to pause. If Val was going to leave anyway, he figured he may as well make it _known_ that he was doomed. He couldn’t fight off the warped smirk his lips curled into. All he could hope was that Cameron couldn’t see it somehow. He’d deny the pleasure he took from things like this until the day he died.  
           Inside the car, Val shook his head. He started to back the car up, but stopped when Cameron stepped closer.  
            _Can he see him?_ Max worried. But the Ukrainian seemed confused more than anything. He leaned closer to the windshield as if trying to get a closer look outside. A rumble of thunder. Then, a lightning flash. It illuminated both him and Cameron. The instant it was dark again, the writer whipped the cane into the hood. The Ukrainian jolted at the loud slam, then he was speeding backwards.  
            _Not so fast._  
           “Turn around,” Max wrote into the prompt over and over. “Turn around.” “Turn around.” “Turn around.”  
           Cameron picked up Max’s cane and returned to the car. “That’ll do,” he said, then grabbed his phone out of Max’s slippery hands. The Aussie could hear the smile in his voice even behind the fur. “Let’s go back home now.”  
           “Is my cane still together?”  
           “It’s not _that_ flimsy,” Cameron handed the unharmed walking stick back to Max. Then, they got back into the car together. Without even taking off the mask, the writer turned the ignition and turned around on the road. Max, meanwhile, had to resist the urge to shake the rainwater out of his matted brown hair.  
           It only took a few minutes for Max to realize how aroused he was. He was cold and soaked, but his breath caught in his chest. His thoughts were near-unintelligible. As much as he still denied his homosexuality, Cameron’s late-night antics and shows of dominance were undeniable turn-ons for him. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of the man in the driver’s seat. The rabbit head was troublesome, though . . .  
           “Take off that mask,” the Aussie snapped on a hot breath. “It’s weird.”  
           “Oh, c’mon, Max. You know you like it.”  
           “Cameron, please.”  
           Still driving, Cameron reached over, blind, and rubbed his bare fingers across Max’s cheek. “Why don’t we do it with the costume tonight, hmm?”  
           “How about because it’s sopping bloody wet?”  
           “Don’t you want to try something new?”  
           “You come near me with that head on and I’ll say ‘apples’ before we even _do_ anything.”  
           Cameron retracted his hand, returning it to the steering wheel. “Touchy, touchy. You use your safeword too much, Max. Sooner or later, I’ll stop being able to _notice_ when you say it.”  
           Max took a breath and crossed a leg over the other.  
            _All right, come on. Calm down. It’s time to stop this weird affair shit. No sex. I’m not even gay._  
           But then, in the back of his mind: _what if he only keeps me alive_ because _I have sex with him?_  
           When Cameron reached over and grazed his forearm, it made him shiver. He bit his thin lip and leaned back in his seat. All at once, the sexual tension overpowered him.  
           “Drive faster,” he demanded. Even through the mask, he could visualize the wide, handsome smirk the dark-skinned writer had.  
           “It’s so hot when you boss me around like that, Max.”  
           “Oh, God. Stop talking. I can’t wait much longer as it is.”  
           “What if I want you to writhe?” taunted the writer in a dark, seductive voice. “Watching you struggle to control yourself is even hotter. You can’t resist me, can you?”  
           Max dug his fingers into his wet hair, dragging it over his flushed face. “I wish I could, but you drive me fucking crazy, Cameron!”  
           Saying the writer’s name a second time made him finally rip off the Bashful mask. He tossed it into the backseat, then pressed down a little harder on the accelerator.  
           Max looked at Cameron’s profile. His slicked back black hair was messier than normal from the rabbit head. He looked composed, though, like he always did. In all their time together, Max had never once seen Cameron get as flustered as he got. With a lick of his lips, the Aussie had an unusual thought.  
            _Fuck this. I’m done being the one who begs. I want to see him lose his cool. I want to make him_ beg _to do things to me._  
           There came that wry grin again, same as when he’d used Cameron’s phone. He wasn’t sure if this would be a good idea, but he knew how to start it. Despite his concern, he decided to try it anyway, craving a new form of excitement.  
           “Cameron,” he husked. A lot of Cameron’s exact turn-ons were unknown to Max. A lot, except hearing him say his name. To be fair, though, the reverse was even stronger on Max. If he were to turn the tables . . .  
           The writer glanced at Max in his peripheral, but gave little other sign that he’d heard him.  
            _I know he did._  
           “Cameron.”  
           “What?”  
           “Cameron.” A slight fidget from him intensified Max’s smirk. “Cameron.”  
           “I see. You’re trying some sort of power play on me, aren’t you?”  
           The Aussie shrugged, playing coy. “I don’t know what you mean.”  
           “You won’t make me flustered.”  
            _He wants to play that way, does he?_ “Well, me neither.” Max straightened himself in his seat. It was a little difficult, though, because he was already half hard. “I’m knackered. Let’s get home so I can sleep.”  
           This earned a bit more real of a glance from Cameron, but this time, Max ignored it. When he looked back at the windshield, he could’ve sworn he heard him mumble something like “You filthy Lothario.”  
           When they got home a few minutes later, they were both quick in getting out of the car and entering the house. Cameron closed and locked the door behind them. Max took off his shoes, making sure to stand in a way that hid his hard-on from the writer’s sight.  
           Cameron stepped closer, looking down at Max. “So,” he said. “We should get out of these clothes. I’m thinking of taking a shower. You?”  
           Max stared up at him. A few seconds later, he realized he’d been spoken to, but couldn’t figure out what he might’ve said. A decent chunk of him wanted to throw himself at his partner, but he suppressed it, unwilling to lose this show of power. So, instead, he shrugged.  
           “I’m going to get something to eat, then go to sleep,” he mumbled. Cameron’s eyes were focused on his; it made him delightfully uncomfortable. There was no response from the writer at all, which he wasn’t sure how to interpret. Not thinking too well, he added, “Good luck with your shower . . . Cameron.” Then, he broke eye contact and walked deeper into their house. Cameron didn’t follow; in fact, he didn’t even move.  
           True to his suggestion, Max’s legs carried him into the kitchen. Right as he was about to accept that he couldn’t manipulate Cameron so, he heard the fast approach of footsteps. Before he could even turn, he’d been shoved, bent over the dining table. Cameron’s hands grabbed his before tying something wet—his tie, most likely—tight around his wrists. Max moaned in delight at the roughness with which Cameron then held him down. Leaning on the Aussie, he bent over him to hiss into his ear,  
           “Don’t fucking power play me, Max. Your safeword will stop _nothing_ if you rev me up like that.”  
            _Promises, promises_ , was the first response to pop into Max’s head. He held his tongue, though.  
           Taking rough hold of the Aussie’s leg, Cameron flipped him over and onto the table. Then his lips were against Max’s, kissing him deep and hard. Already, their tongues were wrestling, but Max didn’t care. There was no need for any sort of foreplay; the tension had done that for them on its own. The way his arms were pinned behind his back, with his hands tied together, was new. Cameron had never bound him before.  
            _Is it because I seduced him? Maybe I should do that more often; it feels kind of good . . ._  
           It was also a bit frightening, but that only added to Max’s enjoyment of it.  
           In a frenzy, Cameron started ripping off Max’s clothes, piece by piece. In doing so, he wound up having to unbind Max’s hands. He was especially rough with his pants, tearing them off with abandon. Then, once he had the Aussie naked under him, he flipped him back over and tied his wrists again.  
           What an exhilarating feeling it was, be the only one undressed, exposed and at Cameron’s mercy. He turned onto his back once more, gray eyes meeting with Cameron’s of dark caramel. There was a rare, wild look in the writer’s eyes, but he held himself still over Max.  
           “It’s not too late,” he advised. “You can still get out of this. My clothes are still on.”  
           Max’s eyes trailed down to Cameron’s crotch. Through his dark blue dress pants, he could see the tent formed by his eager arousal. He brought his gaze back up to meet his.  
           “Cameron,” he breathed.  
           There was extra roughness in the way Cameron moved Max’s legs apart. It was both painful and delightful. From a pocket in his suit blazer, he pulled out a wrapped condom. Then, he was undoing his belt.  
           When Cameron entered him a few seconds later, he cried out. By now, he would’ve expected to be used to the way it felt, but he’d had no such luck. Every time, the heft of the writer’s cock surprised him. It didn’t help this time that Cameron was deciding to skip straight to fucking him hard and fast.  
           “Oh, _God_ , Cameron—slow _down_! _Aah_! _Cameron_!” His voice was shrill from pain and approaching nirvana. “Cameron, _please_!” He squirmed on the table, feet bending forward and toes curling as he screamed. Right as he reached the edge—when only one thrust more would release him from this pleasant torture—Cameron pulled out. This only made Max squirm harder in displeasure.  
           “C-Cameron, what are you doing?”  
           “I said I wanted to see you writhe,” the writer said, voice dark. “This is your punishment for riling me up.” He paced around to the other side of the table; Max followed him with his eyes the whole way.  
           “No, Cameron, please. Please, you can’t do this to me! I’m—I’m so close! I’m going crazy!”  
           The writer ran his fingers along the table as he approached. He teased by moving them closer to Max, but then pulled them back without as much as a touch. “I want to hear you beg.”  
           “Cameron, I’ll lose it! _Please_!”  
           “I won’t let you lose it. I’ll make you wish you could, though.” That said, he reached over Max and gave his member two firm, slow strokes. If Max felt himself slipping away from orgasm, the touch alone brought him back. He cried out, desperate for release, but again Cameron pulled away.  
           “You’re a fucking sadist!”  
           “That’s why you like me so much.”  
           Max struggled against the fabric holding his wrists behind his back. If he could only move his hands, he could finish himself off. At least he knew now why Cameron had restrained him . . .  
           “C’mon, Max. Beg.”  
           “Fuck you!” he moaned. “Apples!”  
           The writer let out a few tuts. “No, no, no. I’m not letting you get out so easy.”  
           “It’s my fucking _safeword_! You can’t ignore it!”  
           “Or else?”  
           “Or else it’s _rape_ , you bastard!”  
           Cameron leaned down. His tongue slithered across the ridges of Max’s ear. The sensation made the Aussie shout in a mix of pleasure and frustration.  
           “You can’t take much more of this, can you?” husked the writer. “Neither can I. Fuck, this is the hottest thing we’ve done yet.” He then pushed himself up and rushed around to the other side of the table.  
           “Please,” Max begged. “Please, finish me!”  
           “Say my name,” demanded the writer, voice unstable.  
           “Cameron!”  
           “Fuck,” he cursed on a breath. He sheathed himself inside Max again; thrust hard, smashing against the wound up-Aussie’s prostate. That was all it took to get Max to throw his head back, screaming in ecstasy as he came. Because of the delay, this orgasm was the strongest he’d ever felt. He felt like he’d die as all his muscles clenched tight. He hardly noticed as Cameron finished too, except for the noise. Usually, Cameron only completed with a choke, but this time, he made a small moan as well.  
           For a few seconds, he blacked out, only to wake up to Cameron’s voice as he leaned over him on the table.  
           “Aren’t you glad I didn’t let you back out?” he gasped. He actually seemed winded for once; unwound in a rather attractive way.  
           Unable to think in his exhausted, post-orgasm delirium, Max laid his head down without a word.

 


	8. Setup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on January 23rd, 2018.

In the morning, Max regretted it. He’d known he would: that was how it always worked. He and Cameron would have sex at night, he’d regret it the following morning, Cameron would seduce him throughout the day . . . Thus, the cycle continued with no end in sight. There was nothing unusual about him waking up in bed alone. Why, then, did he have the feeling that something was wrong?  
           Perhaps it was the potent smell of dish soap. When he got up and left the bedroom, it grew stronger, causing him to bring his hand up to his nose.  
           “What the _hell_?” he mumbled to himself in confusion. The scent led him downstairs, to the kitchen. He hesitated before looking inside. Whenever Cameron did something unusual, it tended to be in the kitchen for some reason.  
           _Did he crack up again and do something weird again?_ He looked into through the doorway. _Yes. Yes, he did._  
           The kitchen counters glistened and _radiated_ soap. They appeared almost worn out from the amount of scrubbing they’d received. From further inside, the smell continued, as did a rough, rhythmic sloshing sound. Max was cautious in stepped inside. Cameron was at the table. The sleeves of his light blue dress shirt were rolled up past his elbows to make room for the rubber dishwashing gloves he wore. In his left hand, he held a sponge, which he used to scrub feverishly at the table.  
           What concerned Max more than Cameron’s sudden cleanliness were the ever-so-faint bags under his eyes. His black hair was still messy from last night.  
           “Did you sleep?” he asked.  
           “And waste my time?”  
           “Why, uh . . . ?” Max looked around the room, then realized he didn’t know how to phrase the question, after all. So, instead, he looked back at the table. There were plenty of soapsuds, but he watched as Cameron squirted out the rest of the dish soap anyway. “I think it’s clean, Cameron.”  
           “You never know,” replied the writer. Then, he gripped the sponge with both hands and scrubbed even harder.  
           Concern coming over him, Max swallowed his hesitation and stepped closer. When his hand fell onto Cameron’s arm, he stopped moving. Slowly, he turned his head and looked at the Aussie.  
           “Stop,” Max said.  
           Cameron blinked, looked back at the table. “Out, damned spot.”  
           “What?”  
           “Out, I say.” The handsome writer lifted the sponge and dropped it into a bucket on the floor beside him. It splashed in the water as if it weighed a pound or two. “One, two; why, then, ‘tis time to do it.” He picked up the bucket and headed toward the sink. Baffled, Max followed him with his eyes.  
           “Cameron, what are you talking about?”  
           “Hell is murky!” He dumped the bucket out into the metal basin and watched the suds slink down the drain after the water.  
           Max only stared, unable to speak— _afraid_ to speak. Cameron seemed so confident in what he was saying, but to the Aussie, it made no sense. He was relieved when Cameron looked at him with his normal smugness.  
           “Your suit’s drying,” he revealed. “I washed it while you were asleep. It’s hanging up in the bathroom.”  
           “Uh, thanks.”  
           “I’m telling you this because I want you to put it on.”  
           “Why?”  
           Cameron pulled down the cuff of his right glove to look at his watch. “We’ve got half an hour, I figure, before August will leave the house.”  
           Max tilted his head. “Okay. How do you know that?”  
           “I told you”—Cameron rinsed off the bucket—“I know him. I’ve got my strange routines; he’s got his. Tuesdays, 1 PM. August likes to go grocery shopping then.” He dumped the bucket once more. “That and he started streaming at 11 and said he was leaving in two hours.”  
           “All right, but do we know _where_?”  
           “Well, he and Val live on Jane St., right? There’s a grocery store a few streets down. Seems like a safe bet he’ll go there.”  
           “Let me guess. You’ve watched him go there through his phone or something.”  
           “Close.” Cameron smirked. “Through Val’s. Haven’t been able to hijack August’s.”  
           Max raised a brow. “That’s new.”  
           Cameron only shrugged. “Hurry up and get dressed. We don’t have time to waste.”  
           “Right.” The Aussie obediently rushed to the downstairs bathroom. Hanging from the shower rod with a set of hangers were his blazer, dress shirt, tie, and pants. He dressed as fast as he could, despite the fact that the suit was still somewhat damp.  
           No later than twenty minutes later, they were in the car together once more. Cameron pulled to a stop down from the main road, on which was the supermarket. They both sat still for a few minutes before Max finally let himself ask,  
           “How do we know he’ll drive past us?”  
           “We don’t,” Cameron admitted. “But this is the optimal route.”  
           “So we’re waiting here on the off chance that he follows the ‘optimal route’?”  
           “Do you have a better idea?”  
           “Not do something stupid? How about that?”  
           Cameron let out a low, dismissive hum and looked out through the window. Again the rabbit head was on, though it seemed fluffier than before. Had the writer blow-dried it? Before Max could determine this, the driver side door opened and Cameron stepped out of the car.  
           “Cam”—the door slammed shut before Max could even finish saying his name. The writer then paced around the front of the car before crouching down beside the passenger side. Max brought the window down with the push of a button before leaning over to stick his head out.  
           “What are you doing?”  
           The squinty rabbit eyes shot up to meet his. “What am I supposed to do? Step out of the car as he’s driving by? He can’t see me until I lunge out at him.”  
           The Aussie felt his eyes bulge in surprise. “‘Lunge out’ at him? Cameron, he’s in a _car_. He will mow you down.”  
           “I won’t let him do that.”  
           Max shook his head and pulled his head back into the car. Arms crossed, he groaned, “This is by far the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”  
           “Then why don’t you try to stop me?”  
           “Because I know you won’t let me.”  
           “Seems I’ve taught you well, Max.”  
           “Shut up.”  
           The rabbit ears seemed to twitch as Cameron’s head did. “Wait. Someone’s coming.” With that the writer grabbed the elongated limbs of the mask and yanked them down. Max glanced through the rearview window. A dark red car turned the corner, heading toward them. In the driver’s seat sat August.  
           _Turn around_ , Max thought, wishing he could scream the words to him. _Go back while you can._  
           Alas, the Aussie didn’t have telepathy, so August didn’t heed the warnings. A few feet down the road later, as he was coming up on the car Max sat in, Cameron crawled around the car. Jumping to his feet, the writer dashed out onto the middle of the road. August’s car swerved to avoid him, then crashed head on into a telephone pole. The sound of the smashing metal and shattering glass made both of them twitch. As if surprised, Cameron looked back toward Max. He shrugged.  
           “Whoops,” he said, then chuckled. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”  
           “Then what _did_ you mean?” Max shouted back to be heard.  
           That got Cameron thinking, but his response wound up being only another shrug. The pink rabbit paws gestured for Max to get out of the car. With reluctance, the artist did.  
           “Play the character,” Cameron hushed as he approached, “in case Val’s listening.”  
           Max didn’t agree with this plan, but he played along. They stepped over to the car and found most of the windows shattered. Cameron used this to his advantage, to open the driver’s side door. August was barely conscious. Somehow he’d hurt his nose, as it was bleeding. The airbag was blown out in front of him, but was starting to deflate. His phone was clipped onto the dash, in a Discord call with Val. They couldn’t hear anything on Val’s end, though. To be on the safe side, Max did Bashful’s voice and tried to remain in character. This was a bit difficult for him, since Cameron was the one who wrote Bashful’s lines. Improvisation wasn’t a strong suit of his.  
           “Well, well,” he taunted. “Look what the cat dragged in! If it isn’t little Buttons. Come on, I’ll take good care of you back at my clubhouse.”  
           Cameron nodded at him, confirming this would do. Reaching over, he grabbed August’s phone and stopped the call. The phone went into his inner breast pocket. He then helped Max drag the Dane, who’d by then fallen unconscious, into the backseat of their car. “Drive back home,” he ordered. “Do you think you can lift him on your own?”  
           “Um, no. He’s almost more muscular than _you_. If he wakes up—”  
           “Don’t worry, he’ll be out like a light long enough,” Cameron assured. “Put him in the basement. Use the chains.” He was referring to some dungeon-esque chains he’d installed on one of the basement walls. They’d always confused Max, not only due to their dated usage, but because he’d had two sets installed.  
           _I mean, if he plans to take Val, too, then I guess it comes in handy . . ._  
           “You want me to chain him to the wall on my own?”  
           “I know you can do it.” Cameron took off the rabbit head and kissed Max on the lips. On went the head again after. “I’ve got to take off. I’ll text you.”  
           “Do I _want_ to know where you’re going?”  
           “It’s time for a stakeout.” With that, Cameron ran off, but in the wrong direction. Max huffed and rolled his eyes.  
           _Bastard’s always evading questions like that . . ._  
           The artist got into the driver’s seat of their gray car and buckled his seatbelt. To his surprise, he found himself more concerned about his ability to drive than the unconscious man in the backseat. As he’d never had a car of his own, he’d never learned how to drive. What little he knew was from movies and watching Cameron.  
           _Okay, Max, get a grip. You don’t have all the time in the world here. Start driving._ But he hesitated. _What if I do something wrong?_  
           Those words always found their way into his head before doing something new. What if he did something wrong? What if he fucked up somehow and made Cameron angry? Then again, wallowing in debilitating indecision wouldn’t help his case, either. With one hand on the ignition key and the other in a fist against his lips, he sat frozen.  
           _How could I possibly muck up something as simple as driving a car? I must’ve seen Cameron do it a hundred times. Stacey a thousand more!_  
           Whatever confidence he’d been trying to build crumbled at the memory of his late ex-girlfriend. She’d had a car, too, even wanted to teach him to drive on the down-low. Despite how she broke up with him, he’d still been friends with her. Right as it looked they might finally let the past stay in the past, though, Cameron murdered her. He'd sent Max pictures of her corpse. Two days later, he’d run away with the psychotic writer.  
           _Run away? I didn’t do that_ , he argued with himself. _I tried to kill myself, but failed. He whisked me away. Kidnapped me!_  
           The Aussie, troubled, glanced over his seat, at the Dane lying unconscious. They were kidnapping him, too, much in the same way. An underlying fear of Max’s had always been—always would be—that one day Cameron would abduct someone to replace him. What would happen to him, then? Would he face murder by Cameron’s cold, cruel hands?  
           With a bitter scowl, Max turned the key in the ignition. It was easy to convince himself that he was acting out of mere self-defense. If chaining August up would give him more time in safety, he’d do it. Still, there was a small part of him that realized a different reason.  
           _Cameron said he knows him. He even knows what time he goes to the store. What is August to him?_ He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, unable to stop this blossoming of jealousy in his heart. _Cameron doesn’t watch streamers, so how does he know him so damn well?_  
           The car moved forward in his control, to the next intersection, following Cameron. Then, he turned left. The writer was rushing down the street a few ahead, but at the next crossroads, Max turned left again.  
           _Time to go home and wait. Oh, I’m going to have fun tying August up now._  
           He sped past Larkin’s Way, down to Jane Street, intent on turning left twice more to start driving back to Glen Hazel. As he reached the intersection of S 25 th and Jane, though, someone ran out in front of the car. In his shock he almost wasn’t able to slam on the brakes in time, but still managed to screech to a halt mere inches from them.  
           To his surprise, it was Val. He did nothing but stare at the streamer, gripping the steering wheel tight.  
           _This is it. We’re screwed. He’s going to see August in the backseat. If I drive away now, can we get away with this? If I slam on the accelerator and take Val out now, would Cameron be angry? I don’t think angry would be strong enough a word. He’d be_ livid _._  
           Instead, though, the auburn-haired man screamed something at him in Ukrainian. After kicking the front bumper, he took off the in direction of the street Max had come from. After a few seconds, the Aussie shook himself out of his stunned state and continued to drive.  
           Once home, he found a way to drag August out of the car by wrapping his arms under the Dane’s shoulders. It took a lot of work, and he thought several times that the Dane would wake up and deck him. But soon he’d managed to get August into the basement with only a few bruises and scrapes. Despite being worn out from dragging such a muscular man so far, he did as he was asked and chained August to the wall. It was a lot easier to lock the metal cuffs in place around his wrists than he’d expected.  
           Cameron’s basement was an _interesting_ place, to say the least. There were various devices for torture and murder in the back, where he was now. The front, though, looked like any other. Max always felt uncomfortable down there, so as soon as he knew August was secure, he left.  
           It wasn’t until 2:30 in the morning, when Max was half-asleep at the kitchen table, that Cameron finally sent a text. Of course, it was asking him to send a picture of August. He was about to refuse, but before doing so, he looked at the date. October 31 st.  
           Doomsday.  
           Max gulped. He had no clue if Cameron intended to kill Val now or wait until April. Regardless, he headed down into the basement with his phone and took a picture of August in chains. He didn’t get a reply until 3:01.  
           “Come pick us up,” Cameron’s text ordered. Max grabbed the car keys and left to obey his command. It seemed Val would live, at least for a few more hours.


	9. Restraint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 1 (January 25th, 2018): General touch-ups. Added familiarity.  
> Originally posted on May 14th, 2017.

“Val? Val, wake up!”  
           The sound of August’s voice woke Val up. His vision was blurry, and his head hurt. He tried to move his arms, but they were held above his head. The sound of chains rattling was abrasive to his ears. With a groan, he buried his face into the sleeve of his left arm. He wanted to go back to sleep. His shoulders ached.  
           “Oh, thank God. Talk to me, Val!”  
           “Mm, I’m here,” Val moaned. He tried to look around, but it did no good, as he didn’t have his glasses on. All he could make out was a lot of gray and a light above him. Since he heard August to his right, he looked in that direction and squinted. Sure enough, the Dane was there, on his knees. His arms were up above his head, too.  
           All at once, he remembered what had led up to this: the car accident, the game, Bashful knocking him out. Seeing the blurry silhouette of August was enough to earn a relieved titter from him. “Oh God, August. I thought you were dead!”  
           “I could say the same about you!” August responded.  
           “Where are we?”  
           “Some basement . . . or a torture chamber. I don’t know! I was driving to the store and this giant pink bunny jumped in front of the car. Next thing I know, I’m here!”  
           “So you saw him too? Bashful?”  
           August sighed. “Someone dressed like him, yeah.”  
           “Muscular?”  
           The Dane glanced at him, or at least, it looked like he did. “He came after you?”  
           “He snuck into the house while I was out looking for you,” Val admitted. “I thought he was going to kill me.”  
           August tugged at his chains; Val heard them rattle. Then, he huffed and asked, “You can’t get out of yours either, huh?”  
           Val tried tugging against his restraints with all his strength. “No,” he answered when he got no result.  
           “Shit. We have to get out of here . . . somehow.”  
           Not having any other ideas, Val tried to stand. Using the chains as supports, he was able to pull himself to his feet, though he had to slouch to keep them from tugging. He wobbled. The blow to the head had scrambled his brain a bit more than he’d thought.  
            _I wonder what he hit me with._  
           That was when they heard someone coming down the stairs. Both of them tensed at the sound.  
           “Sounds like we’ve got company,” August griped. “Get back down onto your knees.”  
           Val didn’t obey.  
           “Val, get down!”  
           “No. I’m not backing away from this _zhopa_.”  
           On the other side of the basement, someone descended to their level. It sounded like they were using a cane. They didn’t need to get very close before Val was able to recognize their silhouette.  
            _It’s him. It’s the guy from the car! He’s the one who kidnapped August to begin with!_  
           “You!” the Ukrainian snapped. “Are you behind all this, _suka_?”  
           “So you can stand,” the stranger observed, ignoring Val’s question altogether. Present in his voice was an Australian accent; he sounded like Bashful. “I don’t think we took your height into account . . .” He approached, then knelt down in front of him. The streamer wanted to knee the guy in the mouth, but decided against it. After a second, the stranger stood back up and held something up.  
           “Get away!” Val flinched. It was as he was doing this that he realized something wasn’t right: _this guy’s too short to have been the guy who attacked me. Still taller than me, sure, but only by an inch. Whoever dressed as Bashful was a little taller than August. Does that mean there’s_ two _of them?_  
           Val’s request was ignored. The man proceeded to push his glasses onto his face. Now able to see, the streamer blinked a few times and looked at the man in front of him. He was wearing a crisp black suit with a white dress shirt and red tie. His hair was brown, short, messy and fluffy. It stuck out wildly at the sides. His face was rather delicate for a man’s, but he had dark rings under his eyes that made him look exhausted. This guy didn’t look like a killer. That was what threw Val off. It wasn’t adding up in his head. How was this guy involved?  
           The stranger introduced himself: “Name’s Max.” He grabbed Val’s left hand in both of his and shook it. “Big fan of you guys.”  
           “You sure have a funny way of showing it,” spat August.  
           Max glanced down at the Dane. He had a small smile on his face, but if Val didn’t know any better, his gray eyes looked sad. “To be honest, I’m sorry you two played the game,” he confessed.  
           “You’re the one who suggested it in the first place, aren’t you?” the Dane accused. “You were that person in chat!”  
           “I don’t have an account,” Max pointed out. “Besides, I would never suggest my own game to someone. Especially not when it leads to this. I condemn the person who recommended you play Bashful Bunny.” Then, his tone changed from remorseful to bitter. “But you two could’ve backed out. You had every chance to do so while you were mocking it.”  
           Val snarled. “Don’t guilt _us_ about this. We aren’t the ones who resorted to causing car crashes and kidnapping people!”  
           Max stared. For a moment, he said nothing. They heard someone else beginning to come down the steps; this sound made the Aussie sigh.  
           “This is the part where most people start begging.”  
           A tall and muscular man came down into the basement. Val and August both recognized him the moment they saw his suit, which was the same as Bashful’s. He had dark ecru-colored skin and black hair slicked up into a faux hawk. In his left hand, he held a cigarette.  
           Val could think of nothing to say. Speechless, he glanced at August. That was how he noticed the alien expression on his face. It was one of so many mixed emotions that it was impossible to identify which was most prominent.  
           “August? August, what’s wrong?”  
           Once he stepped off of the stairs, the new stranger approached and took a drag of his cig. When he exhaled, the smoke blew right into Val’s face, causing him to look away and cough.  
           “I see you’ve met Max,” he said. His caramel brown eyes fell onto August, at which point he tilted his head in some sort of affection? Val couldn’t understand why, not until the Dane finally spoke.  
           “Cameron?” His voice, usually dry and composed, was now a mere whimper. It looked like he was about to cry.  
           “August,” replied Cameron. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Three years, by my estimate. Haven’t seen you since college!”  
           The word “college” made Val’s heart sink. He glanced at August again, this time in a mix of pity and surprise.  
           “So that’s how you know him?” inquired Max, who sounded a bit relieved somehow.  
           “Yep. August and I shared a dorm.” August started shaking his head, which made the psychopath stop grinning. “Why are you shaking your head? I thought you’d be happy to see me.”  
           “You son of a bitch,” sobbed the Dane. His green eyes swung up to glare at Cameron.  
           “What? What’s the matter?”  
           “I was just starting to forget you. I was starting to move on, to accept that you were a part of my past. A _good_ part. And now . . .”  
           The man crouched down in front of him. “And now you’re chained up in my basement.” A few pats on August’s cheek. “It’s a small world after all, isn’t it?”  
           “You made the game?” Val demanded.  
           “Bingo. Couldn’t have done it without Max, though. I might know how to code and hack, but I don’t have the patience to make a game.” Cameron stood. “Would’ve been more convenient as a virus, to be honest. But that wouldn’t have been quite as interesting.”  
           “All this to see me again?” There was bitterness in August’s voice now. “You could’ve called me. I never changed my phone number.”  
           “Don’t flatter yourself,” teased Cameron. “I can assure you, August: you were no more than a pleasant surprise.”  
           The Dane tugged limply at his restraints. “ _This_ is what you did with your bachelor’s degree?”  
           “Better than not using it at all, sitting around rotting my brain with video games all day.”  
           “I never _got_ my degree,” countered August, smirking through his retaliation.  
           “Oh? Did you fail after all that, or did you really not have a case study?”  
           “I dropped out, because my case study got his degree. Might’ve kept a closer eye on him afterward if I’d known he’d use it to kidnap people.”  
           That got rid of Cameron’s smirk. He took a step back. “Oh. I see. _I_ was your . . . ? Well, if you didn’t predict this, then I guess you weren’t that good at reading me.” Then, he turned his attention onto Val. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Cameron Fenn, the proud creator of Bashful Bunny. Nice to meet you.”  
           “Let us go,” the Ukrainian ordered.  
           “Oh, I likely won’t get around to _that_ , Kozel. Why would you want to leave now, anyway? The fun’s only just starting.”  
           “Whole lot of fun _this_ is. We’re chained to the walls of your kink dungeon!”  
           Cameron seemed surprised by that title. “I thought the go-to title would’ve been ‘torture chamber’,” he muttered, “but sure. ‘Kink dungeon’ seems fitting enough. I can dig ‘kink dungeon’.” He stepped closer and stared down at him. With his free hand, he cupped the Ukrainian’s chin. Then, he leaned in closer.  
           “You know, you’re a lot shorter than I expected,” he said.  
           Val replied by spitting in his face.  
           Cameron stood up straight and laughed as he wiped the saliva off of his face. “You’re a feisty one, I take it? No worries. I like that.” He lifted his hand again and used it to caress Val’s cheek. This caused the streamer to squirm in discomfort. The man looked down at the two belts on the left side of his jeans. The top one was green, and the bottom one was dark blue. He reached his hand down as he brought his cigarette back to his lips with the other, then he stroked the straps. “What are these for? Decoration?”  
           “Yeah,” Val stammered. All of a sudden, he felt uncomfortable for a different reason. Cameron looked him over from head to toe like prey. It was almost as if he was undressing him with his eyes. He had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. He felt like he would be sick.  
           “Cam, no,” begged August, much to Val’s distress. If even August was begging . . .  
           “They’re nice,” Cameron commented, holding his cigarette in his teeth. Without saying anything more, he reached up to the top button of Val’s red shirt and started to undo it. All at once, the Ukrainian flushed with panic, trying to kick at the taller man. His attempt to reach up and stop this was foiled by the cuffs around his wrists, holding his arms straight down. So, he squirmed from side to side. This did little to deter Cameron, who tugged the shirt forward to continue unbuttoning it.  
           “What are you doing?” Val yelled. “Stop it!”  
           “Hey!” August resumed struggling at his own restraints. “Let go of him, Cameron!” In response, Cameron spat his cigarette at him.  
           “Let go of m”—Val was cut off when Cameron’s lips locked with his. He proceeded to struggle harder, but his kicks proved futile as Cameron pressed himself closer. The tall man tugged on his own tie and ripped it off, throwing it to the side, toward August. Then, he held the side of Val’s head and began kissing him deeper. Val didn’t return the gesture. He tried to throw his head from side to side, but it didn’t help.  
           “Val!” August shouted. “Cameron, you fucking . . . !” He managed to turn himself around, crossing the chains over one another, and tried to use his feet to pull harder at them. He only wound up hurting his hands by doing this, but he kept trying. All the while, he screamed curses at Cameron.  
           “ _D_ _in pik slikker_! Let him the fuck go, or I swear to _God_!”  
           Between kisses, “Jealous, August?”  
           “Go to hell!”  
           Cameron ignored August and reached down. With his right hand, he cupped Val’s groin. Val twitched, but couldn’t do much else to fight. Max watched, idle, until Cameron undid the Ukrainian’s pants and pulled them down. At that point, he finally cleared his throat, loud enough that the writer realized he was watching. So, the writer stopped what he was doing and slowly turned his head to look at Max. The Aussie had his arms crossed over his chest, sneering in apparent fury.  
           “Oh,” he spoke in a casual way to his short partner. “Right. You’re still here.” He looked at Val, then back at Max. After looking the suited young man up from head to toe, he hummed in thought. “You know, it would be hot to see _you_ doing this, Max.”  
           “Excuse me?” snarled Max. “You want to try explaining to me what ‘this’ is, first?”  
           “I want to see you suck him off.”  
           “Are you even listening to yourself, Cameron?”  
           “Why, what’s the matter?”  
           “I’m not going to suck Val’s dick.”  
           Cameron walked to the other side of the room and picked up a knife from the table. Then, he returned to Val and grabbed his bangs, ripping his head up. The stainless steel blade slid up to Val’s throat, causing him to tense up in fear.  
           “You _will_ ,” he instructed, “or I’ll kill him now. You know I will.”  
           Max only glared at Cameron. It was almost as if he was _daring_ him to do it. For a long beat, all four of them were dead silent. Val kept still, August stopped struggling, Cameron remained composed, Max stood his ground. The psychopathic writer pressed the knife closer to Val’s throat.  
           “Don’t test me, Max. Today _is_ a doomsday, after all.”  
           The Aussie growled, but did approach, albeit with hesitation. Cameron smiled at him—a pure, innocent smile.  
           “There we go. Down on your knees, now.”  
           Val shouted and kicked Max’s cane out of his hand. It hit Cameron, then fell to the ground near August, who only wished he could reach it. The artist stared at Val with wide eyes while Cameron laughed.  
           “You know he doesn’t _need_ the cane, right? It helps him, but it’s more or less there for the sake of looking posh.”  
           Max sneered. “Shut up, Cameron. You’re the _reason_ it helps. I wouldn’t need it at all if not for you.”  
           “Hush. On your knees.”  
           “I’ll kick you,” Val warned. “Don’t touch me, _kurva_!”  
           Cameron frowned and looked at Max. “I think he just called you a whore, unless my Ukrainian’s getting rusty. Are you going to let him call you that?”  
           Max shot him a look of disapproval. “What would you like me to do? Teach him a lesson by sucking his dick?”  
           “Prove him wrong by sucking his dick like a champion. Whores suck at sucking dick.”  
           “Well, I would hope they _do_ suck, Cameron.”  
           “On your knees,” Cameron stressed with a tinge of amusement. He put his palm down onto Max’s head and pushed, forcing him to buckle his legs and crouch. “There.” He took a few steps back. “Take your time. Work him up.”  
           “Touch him and you’re dead!” warned August.  
           “Shut up, Lund.”  
           Max stared at Val’s crotch. Of course, the streamer was flaccid—he could tell that much even through his briefs. Max was also flaccid. In fact, he was quite sure he’d never been more flaccid than he was right now. Something about all this felt wrong. He didn’t find Val sexually attractive; raping him was not the right way to go about changing that.  
           “Max?” inquired Cameron. “What are you waiting for?”  
           “I can’t do this.”  
           “Why not?”  
           Max glared back at him. “For one, I’m not gay!”  
           The sigh Cameron let out alone expressed how sick he was of hearing this from Max. “Maxime, buddy. We have sex every other night. We even fucked yesterday. Last I checked, you never had sex with Stacey.”  
           Max shot to his feet. “How _dare_ you? How _dare_ you bring her up?” he bellowed in fury. “You’re trying to force me to suck some guy’s cock, and you have the _audacity_ to bring up my ex-girlfriend? Who _you killed_?”  
           Realizing he’d struck a nerve and that his attempt to force Max into performing oral would go nowhere fast, he dropped it. So, instead, he crooned, “Let’s go upstairs and talk about it over breakfast, shall we?” He approached Max and wrapped his arm over his shoulders before walking him out of the basement, but not before picking up the cane. Meanwhile, Val tried to pick up his pants. That was easier said than done, though, with his hands restrained.  
           Once they were alone in the basement, August glanced at Val and asked, “Are you okay?”  
           Val didn’t answer. His face was flushed from a mixture of shame and confusion at what had almost happened. He still had his briefs on, but wanted—and kept trying—to pull his pants back up.  
           “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault,” lamented the Dane as he threw his head back. It struck the wall, but not too hard. “This never would’ve happened if I hadn’t pointed out that suggestion! Why didn’t I ignore it? Val, I’m so sorry. I wish he’d at least let _you_ go . . .”  
           Whatever happened, Val only hoped that Cameron wouldn’t do what he did again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Phrases:**  
>  _Zhopa (Жопа)_ : Asshole  
>  _Suka (Сука)_ : Bitch  
>  _Din pik slikker_ : You cocksucker  
>  _Kurva (Курва)_ : Whore


	10. Wine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 1 (January 25th, 2018): General touch-ups. Added argument with August.  
> Originally posted on May 15th, 2017.

Along with a plate of pancakes, Cameron gave Max a glass of red wine. This confused Max, since it wasn’t even eight in the morning yet. He half expected the typical “five o’clock somewhere” excuse, but Cameron ignored him outright. Instead of replying, he poured himself some wine as well. Max stared at him until he finally decided to speak.  
           “I figured it would take the edge off. You seem stressed.”  
           Rather than fly off of the handle, Max held his tongue. He was too tired to argue. It was bad enough that he hadn’t been sleeping well as of late to begin with.  
           “I don’t drink,” he responded. “I thought you would’ve known that by now.”  
           “Trust me, it’ll help,” Cameron assured.  
           With reluctance, Max brought the glass to his lips and took a sip. The liquid was bitter, as he’d anticipated but worse. He had to force himself to swallow the small amount that’d found its way into his mouth.  
           Cameron sat down across from him. He had a plate of eggs and bacon. The way he started eating was too casual. It was almost like he hadn’t attempted to rape one of the two people chained up in the basement five minutes earlier. Max was still upset about that, but he picked up his cutlery and cut himself a triangle of a pancake. Upon spearing it with his fork’s prongs, though, he hesitated.  
            _I’m not hungry. Not at all._  
           He chewed idly on the inside of his lower lip before glancing up from his plate to Cameron. The writer ate his eggs and bacon with a Victorianesque combination of speed and grace. He didn’t appear at all fazed by Max’s staring.  
           When the Aussie realized he was scraping his fork back and forth across his plate, he stopped himself. Then, he asked in a low voice that dripped with false casualness, “What was all that about?”  
           Cameron took another bite of his eggs. After he swallowed, he glanced up at Max as if innocent. “What do you mean?”  
           He did his best to remain patient, but the smile on his face was not one of amusement. “What you did to Val. That”—he paused to keep his composure—“wasn’t part of the plan.”  
           Cameron shrugged and picked up his wine glass. Before he drank, he said, “I don’t see a problem with changing things up a little.”  
           Max glared at him. He put down his fork on his plate, then rapped his fingers against the table. This gesture did nothing to attract the attention of the writer, who chugged his wine. It might’ve impressed Max, were he not so furious. Though he had to admit it was somewhat worrying, as well. Cameron drank sometimes, but never so much. What would happen if he got drunk? The younger man picked up his own wine glass, but wasn’t sure why; he didn’t want to drink anymore of it.  
           When he finished all the wine in his glass, Cameron exhaled and put it down. Then, he leaned back in his chair and gazed at Max. He said nothing. For a long moment, both of them were dead silent as they stared at each other. Then, without warning, Cameron chirped, “You know, Val reminds me a lot of you.”  
           Max stood up from his chair so fast that it fell backwards, then whipped his wine glass into the wall. It shattered and wine droplets flew everywhere, some even splashing onto his face. He didn’t care, though.  
           “You never discussed this with me!” He screamed at Cameron, who didn’t even flinch. “Do you think I’m okay with this? Didn’t you realize I was right _fucking_ there, _watching_ you? This is fucked up even for you, Cameron! Even for _you_!” When he realized that Cameron was smirking at him, he pointed at him and raged on. “You are a sick, twisted man, dare I even call you that! You _disgust_ me!”  
           “Then leave,” Cameron offered. He sounded pleasant and smug, as if he knew Max would never consider it. “I’ve never tried to stop you from leaving. You’re the one who keeps coming back here. The one who keeps calling anywhere I am ‘home’.”  
           Max curled his index finger back, balling his hand into a fist. His jaw quivered. Cameron had a point. If he argued, he’d be contradicting his own actions. Already having realized this, Cameron leaned forward. He placed his elbows on the table and rested his chin atop his interlocked hands.  
           “I think you’re jealous, Max.”  
           “Jealous?” Max spat the word, but remained frozen with his fist extended toward Cameron. “I’m not jealous. Why would I be?”  
           “Because I’m all you have, and these two threaten the security you have in knowing that I’m yours and yours alone.”  
           Max’s eyes widened. It frightened him to feel Cameron’s words resonating with him. He hadn’t realized it, but that seemed to be the _exact_ reason he was so upset. It wasn’t because he was doing something so atrocious. It was because he was afraid of losing him. If Cameron lost interest in him, he’d have nothing left . . . never mind the fact that Cameron would likely murder him. The writer’s handsome, dark smirk grew as he saw Max’s face pale. He stood up and leaned over the table, toward Max, before stroking his cheek.  
           “Don’t worry,” he assured in a loving croon. “Your doomsday will always be my favorite. Nothing can ever change that.”  
           The Aussie reached up with his extended hand and brought it up to rest over Cameron’s. They stared into each other’s eyes. That was when he had a thought that he’d never had before.  
            _I want to hear you say you love me . . ._  
           One word. One word that’d never occurred to him, not since moving in with Cameron. Not since he attempted suicide by jumping out of his apartment window two years prior. “Love”. It’s presence in his mind now horrified him. His mouth opened without him realizing it.  
           “I”—was all that was able to escape his lips before he snapped them shut.  
           “Yes?” Cameron asked. The way he stroked Max’s cheek made him hot under the collar; he felt his face starting to flush. A loving caress, yes, but also lustful. It ashamed him, the way it made his heart race.  
           “You’re trembling, Max. What’s the matter?”  
           “Nothing,” he stammered. “It’s nothing.”  
           “Are you sure?” husked the writer as he leaned closer. His eyes drifted half shut as the tip of his nose touched Max’s. The question almost seemed to have two sides to it—in part searching for confirmation, but also asking if Max was thinking the same thing. A shiver ran down Max’s spine. He opened his mouth again.  
           “Yeah,” he breathed against Cameron’s lips, answering both sides at once. Cameron responded by kissing Max deeply. Throwing caution to the wind, Max kissed back without any hesitance. The table wound up being too much of an obstruction, so Cameron broke the connection and walked around to Max’s side. He grabbed the younger man and pushed him back, pinning him against the wall to continue kissing him. As his tongue found its way into Max’s mouth, he rubbed up against him. Their tongues wrestled as if frenzied. All Max could taste was wine, but it was somehow sweeter now.  
           As they made out, Cameron pulled off Max’s tie. Then, they started to undress each other. They threw their suit jackets and dress shirts down to the floor, careless and blind. Cameron turned and pushed their plates aside before pulling Max off the wall and throwing him down onto the table. As they rushed to undo their belts, Max quipped between gasps: “Are we doing this in the dining room _again_? You went crazy cleaning it this morning . . .”  
           “Seems like a bad habit,” Cameron admitted. “But I’m not about to stop.” He grabbed Max’s wrists in a rough grip and tugged his arms up above his head. He was equally rough with his legs, tugging his pants off like his life depended on it before lifting them up. Though, he stopped short. When he ducked down, Max heard clothes rustling.  
            _Right. His obsession with using a condom._  
           Cameron came back up, only empty handed. He looked a bit troubled.  
           “What is it?” Max panted.  
           “I’m out,” he mumbled.  
           “Forget it. It’s not like I can get pregnant.”  
           This only made the writer more uncertain. “I know. But . . .”  
           “Come on.” Max reached up and dug his fingers into his own messy brown hair. “Fuck me already, Cameron.”  
           There was still reluctance on his face, but with a deep breath, Cameron collected himself. Before entering, he spat into his palm and rubbed his arousal to lubricate it. As he did this, he gently stroked Max’s with his other hand. This friction earned a few short moans from the Aussie. He’d always been loud; neither of them saw that changing anytime soon. Cameron loved it when he let out erotic sounds, anyway.  
           Max felt the writer grab at his narrow hips, then lean in closer. A second later, the familiar feeling of his member sliding into him caused him to emit a brief cry. Cameron’s palm was flat against the table to brace himself as he slid out a bit to pound back into him. Max’s hand twitched and managed to find the man’s tense forearm, which it clung to. His nails dug into the skin, but pain only made Cameron more eager.  
           “Harder,” he cried out in ecstasy. “Oh _God_ , ah. Harder, Cameron!”  
           Cameron was about to oblige when, all of a sudden, something made him stop.  
           “What the hell is _wrong_ with you two?” It was faint, but still audible. The sound of August screaming at them from downstairs caused them both to freeze. For a beat, neither of them moved. Then, Max raised his head.  
           “Can they hear us?” he asked while struggling to stabilize his breathing.  
           Cameron looked as concerned as he did, to his surprise. “I didn’t think so, but I guess they can. I mean, the basement isn’t soundproof.”  
           Max’s face flushed in a mixture of shame, rage, and embarrassment. “Fuck, Cameron!” he shouted and started hitting at him. Cameron understood and pulled out before taking a step back to let him sit up.  
           “Fine. Let’s deal with this, then,” Cameron suggested as he pulled his pants back up.  
           “Yeah,” Max accepted, blissfully unaware that he and Cameron had wildly different ideas of what “dealing with it” implied. After putting on his pants, he reached for his shirt, but Cameron stopped him.  
           “Forget it. Take your cane.”  
           “Shouldn’t I get dressed first?”  
           “Pants alone are fine. Come on.”  
           Max frowned. When Cameron hurried ahead of him, he put on his suit jacket despite his remark. Then he grabbed his metal cane and followed Cameron down into the basement. It was colder down there than anywhere else in the house, so he was happy he’d brought the blazer.  
           Val continued to sit meekly on the floor. Somehow he’d managed to pull his pants back up, though his shirt remained open. Judging by the bleeding of his wrists and the scrapes on the floor, August had been struggling to break free. It was difficult to tell if he’d made any progress, but Max assumed he hadn’t. They both stared at him and Cameron with contempt, though Val’s was diluted by a layer of fear.  
           Cameron approached August with his hands behind his back. “What was that, August?” he asked. There was a level of impatience in his voice that Max had never heard before, and it made him a bit nervous.  
           The Dane shook his head in either protest or disgust. “What’s wrong with you? Get a goddamned room.”  
           “You _are_ jealous, aren’t you?” the writer hummed.  
           “Not anymore. No reason to be now that I understand you.”  
           Cameron scowled. “Understand me? You don’t ‘understand’ me.”  
           “Don’t I?” August’s gaze shifted onto Max, though he still spoke to Cameron. “For one, you’re an avid fan of coincidences.”  
           Cameron said nothing; followed August’s eyes onto Max. When he did, the Dane looked back at him.  
           “Do you think I didn’t notice?”  
           The writer blinked. Max fidgeted under his gaze. Then, he turned his head and looked back at August. “Notice what? There’s nothing for you to notice.”  
           “Oh, don’t play dumb, Cam. You and I both know he looks like—”  
           “Shut up.” Cameron cut August off with the brusque demand. He’d said enough to make Max curious, though. The Aussie looked back and forth between them.  
           “Look like who?”  
           “Ignore him, Max.”  
           August scowled. “Julian.”  
           “Shut up!” The shout made Max jolt in fear.  
            _Fuckin’ hell. I’ve never heard him scream like that . . ._  
           “He deserves to know he’s only a replacement!”  
           “August, I’m warning you!”  
           “You always were, weren’t you?” the Dane shouted back. “You were always trying to warn me, but I never believed you! Never believed you could be right! Never realized what a sick fuck you are!” He shook his head. “I never liked Julian, but now I feel sorry for him. I can only imagine what you did to him in private. Were you planning to kidnap him, too? Was I your only obstacle?”  
           The look on Cameron’s face was not one Max could readily describe. Whatever it was, it looked foreign on him.  
           “Drop the subject, August,” he warned. “Or else I’ll kill Val and make you watch.”  
           “You don’t have the _goddamned_ guts!” August countered.  
           “Cameron, who’s he talking about?”  
           “Shut the fuck up, Max! This doesn’t involve you!”  
           Chastised, Max went back to being as quiet as Val.  
           August took a shaky, emotional breath. “God, I . . . I can still remember what he looked like when he fell . . .”  
           “Max, give me your cane.”  
           The Aussie tensed up and looked at Cameron. Though he didn’t want to disobey, he was afraid of what Cameron would do. “No.”  
           “August, stop talking,” Val warned as his first interjection. August didn’t react to it, though.  
           “He landed right next to me . . . and then I looked up and saw you standing there, looking out of his window.” With tears now falling down his face, August glared at Cameron. “And I _believed_ your story! I believed that you were there to stop him. That not being able to hurt you. That you _cared_! I thought your lack of grief was out of trauma, but why did it affect me more than you? We both watched him die, but I didn’t even like him! You didn’t even come down to check on him!”  
           “Check on him?” Cameron’s question was on an incredulous breath. Then, suddenly, he was shouting too. “What more did you fucking want from me, August? For me to go down there and laugh at him for not being able to fly, or whatever the _fuck_ he thought that’d accomplish? I tried to talk him down, but he wouldn’t listen to me!” The writer took a breath of his own, one that quivered. “It didn’t affect anyone more than it affected me, August. Don’t you _dare_ think different! His was the first death I couldn’t control—the first I didn’t _want_!”  
           But August shook his head. “No. No, I think you’re lying. I _know_ you’re lying.”  
           “Oh, and how do you know that, you stupid Danish bastard?”  
           “If Julian’s death was a suicide . . .” He glanced at Max again. “. . . then you wouldn’t have sought out his lookalike.”  
           “What the fuck does that prove?”  
           “I know you, Cam. You don’t keep bad memories around.”  
           “Stop saying you know me! You don’t!”  
           “You gave me the wine we shared.”  
           Those words brought a somber, stunned look to Cameron’s face. For once, he seemed speechless.  
           “I was always the bad memory. Never useful, only something you were happy to cut out of your life. I know too much about you. You don’t think it’s safe to have any connections with me, because sooner or later, I’ll figure out your true colors. Well, I’ve figured them out now. What did you do to Julian while I was away that night? Did you mean for me to see the body? I mean, you must’ve.”  
           “Don’t make me do this.”  
           “Tell me the truth.”  
           “I’ve told you. You saw it yourself.”  
           “I don’t believe you! Julian didn’t commit suicide, did he?”  
           Before Max could react, Cameron reached over and ripped his cane out of his grip. He held it threateningly, as if about to hit the Dane with it. “August, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop talking _right now_!”  
           Then followed a tense staring match. Cameron and August’s eyes were locked. They both wore fierce, determined expressions. Max and Val, on the other hand, stared at the two of them in anxiety.  
            _Something bad is about to happen_ , Max thought. _I’ve never seen Cameron this angry . . . What’s he going to do? Should I stop him?_  
           “You . . .” August’s face grew more aggressive. “You killed—”  
           Before he could even finish the accusation, Cameron swung Max’s cane, smacking August in the side of the head. With a pained grunt, the Dane tilted to the side, held up by the chains around his wrists. But Cameron didn’t stop there. He raised the cane, striking him over and over.  
           “August!” Val shouted as he struggled against his restraints. “ _August_!”  
           The writer momentarily stopped, holding the cane up so its end almost touched the ceiling. “Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts!” he yelled. “Unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top full of direst cruelty!” With all the strength he could muster, he slammed the cane down again. This impact resulted in a gore-y cracking sound; August’s cry of pain turned into more of a choked mewl.  
           “No!” screamed Val. “No, _no_! _August_ , _no_!”  
           Max lunged forward and grabbed Cameron’s arm in an attempt to restrain him. “Stop! Cameron, stop it _now_! _Stop_!” But Cameron was much stronger than him; it was with ease that he threw Max off of himself and struck _him_ with the cane. The blow both knocked Max to the floor and slapped him against the side of the face with August’s blood. The writer then resumed beating August’s head in, though he was already unconscious. Val continued screaming. When Cameron finally stopped, he pointed at him with the bloody cane and roared,  
           “If you don’t shut your _goddamned_ mouth, the next thing this cane hits will be _your_ head!”  
           “ _August_ ,” Val cried, undeterred.  
           Cameron frowned and looked down at August . . . or, he figured, what had _been_ August. He’d broken a sweat and lost his sense of control. He wasn’t sure how many times he’d hit the Dane, or how hard, but the sight of white and pink amidst the gushes of red suggested the answers were _a lot_ and _very_. He panted in an attempt to catch his breath and looked back toward where his lover had fallen.  
           Max was sitting up and staring at August’s bashed-in head in both shock and mortification. All that moved were his eyes, as they glanced up to meet Cameron’s stare. There was blood all over his face, contrary to what Cameron had expected. He hadn’t thought the cane was _that_ bloody . . . Then, he looked down and saw the viscous liquid dripping off it in long, thick threads. Not to mention the fragments of skull and brains on it. There was blood on him, too—quite a lot of it. He hummed in thought, then dropped the cane and stepped over to Max. When his extended hand, an offer to help Max up, was ignored, he grabbed him by the arm and tugged him to his feet.  
           “Come now,” he said to him. “Let’s go get cleaned up.”  
           Max looked terrified. He didn’t say anything, nor even move to escape from Cameron. The horrific scene he’d witnessed had stunned him beyond action. So, Cameron took his hand and pulled him along, up the basement stairs, leaving Val to cry next to August’s bloody, battered body alone.

 


	11. Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 1 (January 27th, 2018): General touch-ups. Essentially re-written from scratch.  
> Originally posted on May 19th, 2017.

Cameron ran the tub in the first floor’s bathroom. Max sat, traumatized, on the edge of the porcelain appliance. As the taller man adjusted the water temperature, making it hotter, he stared down at the tiled floor. Cameron had killed before, sure, but never in front of him. What appalled Max most, though, was the sheer brutality with which he’d disposed of August. Something in him had snapped. Though he should’ve before, Max now felt unsafe. The little part of him he’d been ignoring for so long, that wanted to escape, was now at the forefront of his mind. But even now, he still couldn’t bring himself to act on it.  
           Once the water was hot enough, Cameron looked at Max and smiled. It was a gesture that rubbed the younger man the wrong way. The blood all over him didn’t do much to vouch for its innocence.  
           “Is this good?” he asked about the water temperature. When Max didn’t answer, he picked up one of the loofas, but then reconsidered and put it back down. Without saying anything else, he crouched down on the floor in front of the Aussie. He leaned in closer, staring right at him. It made Max nervous, so he only stared at him with wide eyes.  
           “A little water clears us of this deed. How easy is it, then?” Cameron raised his hands, which caused Max to flinch. His hands went to the sides of Max’s jaw, turning his head to the left. There was blood all over the right side of Max’s face. The writer gazed at the congealed patch of red.  
           “My hands are of your color,” he said. “But I shame to wear a heart so white.” Then, without warning, he moved closer and gave it a long, seductive lick. The sensation caused Max to shiver, then tense up.  
           Cameron husked a laugh into his ear. “His blood tastes sweet off your skin,” he whispered. His hands slipped down to Max’s shoulder, slowly pulling his suit blazer off. The way he dropped it to the floor behind himself was playful and seductive. One of the limbs ran itself down Max’s chest and stopped at his groin, which it then began to fondle. The Aussie jolted at the touch.  
           “Cameron, what are you doing?” he asked in moderate discomfort.  
           “Let’s continue where we left off, okay?”  
           “You just bashed a man’s head in . . . !”  
           “What can I say?” A small bemused hum. “Murder makes me horny.” The writer leaned in closer.  
           “You’re disgusting. D-don’t touch me.”  
           Cameron’s tongue glided from Max’s chin, back across the blood, to his ear. Then it pulled away, went backwards, down his gullet. Before he could stop it, the Aussie felt himself shiver again. In response, the writer reached down, again cupping Max’s groin. Something made him smile.  
           “Oh. Have I discovered a fetish?”  
           “I don’t know what you’re”—another tantalizing lick, across the other side of his face—“Ah . . .”  
           “You like to be licked? What would you do if I started licking you all over?” He grazed his pink appendage down the side of his neck, stopping at the middle of his chest. The way Max lurched into him somewhat with a stifled gasp was indication enough for him. “Oh, you’d let me, wouldn’t you? Because it feels good? It tastes good, too. I’d love to lick you from head to toe.”  
           “C-Cameron . . . Stop . . . Ah!” His body twitched when he felt Cameron’s soft tongue across his nipple. The licks remained localized there for a few long seconds, turning into gentle sucks. Max felt dread welling up in his heart at a familiar feeling.  
            _Oh, Christ—I’m getting hard! He brutally murdered a guy in front of me only a few minutes ago; why am I getting hard? Stop!_ But it was impossible to argue with his body. His fingers reached around Cameron, digging into his back as a groan escaped his throat. As the torturous sensations continued, he started to sob, though no tears came. The sounds did little to dissuade Cameron, though.  
           “I’m sick,” moaned the Aussie in despair. “I’m sick like you. My mind is full of scorpions . . .”  
           Cameron paused, looked up. He beamed at Max, as if pleased by his words. “Things without all remedy should be without regard,” quoth he. “What’s done is done.” Then he leaned closer, as if to kiss him, but without doing so he slid down onto his knees. Max looked down at him, confused and concerned.  
           He said nothing as he rubbed the artist up through his pants. No briefs on, the touch itself was almost enough to drive him mad. There was so much conflict in his mind.  
            _I shouldn’t want this. Why am I not traumatized? Which of us is the sick one? Cameron, for doing this after killing someone, or me, for enjoying it so bloody much?_  
           Still on his knees, Cameron reached through the zipper and took hold of Max’s semi-hard erection. He pulled it out, a firm grip on it. His eyes swung up, meeting the Aussie’s, causing him to look away.  
           “I’ve never done this before,” revealed the writer, “but the sight of you all blood-boltered is so hot. I can’t resist.”  
           Before Max could say anything, Cameron was licking the sides of his shaft. As he strangled another moan, his fingers pressed hard into the sides of the bathtub. Of all the things they’d done, oral sex had never been one of them. They hadn’t thought they’d be into it. But now, with Cameron’s delicious tongue moving over every inch of his arousal, Max only grew harder. He wanted to argue, ask Cameron to stop lest it make him go insane. All he managed to do was whimper, though.  
           As the writer took Max into his mouth, he placed one hand on his pelvis to brace himself. The other remained wrapped around the base, stroking his back in forth with the same rhythm as his sucks. Max bit his lower lip and pinched his eyes shut. Though he’d tried to fight it, a few seconds later his hands shot up and grabbed Cameron’s hair. With force, he shoved him deeper against him, forcing him to take the whole thing into his mouth a few times. The writer made a muffled noise of surprise, a pleasant vibration, but didn’t pull away.  
           “Hum,” Max panted, desperate. “Make a noise. Try to talk. Something.”  
           Cameron obeyed, beginning to hum in the back of his throat. The quiver of it created a rapturous feeling for Max, who found himself getting more and more into it.  
           “ _Ahh_ , fuck yes. Just like that, Cameron. That feels so good. Fuck.”  
           When the Aussie opened his eyes, looking down at the man working on his arousal, he saw an interesting sight. Cameron wasn’t backing down, but there was a certain look on his face: eyes pinched shut, brows furrowed. He looked like he was struggling. On one hand, it was worrying; he didn’t want to make Cameron do anything he didn’t want to. On the other, seeing this new expression on Cameron was kind of erotic.  
            _Why is he making that face? Is he not enjoying this? He’d pull away if that was the case. I’ve never seen him look like this before. Is it because he’s aroused? No, can’t be. Is it . . . Am I . . . too big for him? Is he having trouble fitting me in his mouth?_  
           The thought only made Max even more aroused. Teetering on the edge now, his breath picked up.  
           “Cameron,” he gasped. “Ah, C-Cameron, I’m—I’m gonna— _aah_ . . .!”  
           Cameron weaned himself off of Max’s arousal. Once his mouth was free, he gulped air and looked up at Max. “Huh?” he asked, as if he hadn’t been able to make out his words.  
           Unable to stop it, Max wrangled a cry as he came. Cameron flinched when the warm seed spewed across his face. It wasn’t as good an orgasm as last time, but still it was utter bliss. With his eyes closed, he took deep breaths. Then, he opened them again and gazed down at Cameron. The sight of him with strands of white across his face was hot, hotter than Max could’ve ever imagined. It was troubling, though, that Cameron still didn’t look comfortable. The writer reached up, scooping the glob of ejaculate that had landed across his nose onto his fingers. Then, he stared at it.  
            _If he licks it, I’m gonna scream. That’d be too hot . . ._  
           But, instead, Cameron’s face warped into one of disgust. With a sharp swipe downward, he shook the come off of his hand. Max felt his heart sink with worry.  
            _Oh, shit. I don’t think he liked that._  
           His fears were confirmed when Cameron glared up at him. There were still some white strings on his face, but now Max wanted to wipe them away. He dared not move, though.  
           “I-I’m sorry,” the Aussie stammered. “I tried to warn you, but it . . . It happened too fast.”  
           Cameron stared at him for a beat, then stood up. He sat down beside Max on the edge of the tub. After a few seconds of silence, he reached up and caressed Max’s bloodied cheek.  
           “I’m sorry,” repeated the Aussie.  
           Without a word, Cameron’s hand reached over Max’s right ear, past it to the back of his head. It was a soothing gesture until his fingers dug into his hair, tugging it hard. Fingers tangled and grip firm, he used it to whip him down. Max’s head plunged under the hot water that was still slowly filling the tub. When the Aussie tried to struggle, his weakened arms kept slipping into the water. Air bubbles surfaced around his face as he screamed underwater without meaning to. Soon, he was finally pulled back up and allowed to gulp in oxygen.  
           “Apples,” he gasped in a panic. “Apples! App—”  
           Cameron dunked his head into the water again. The artist’s attempts to struggle against him grew weaker with each passing second. “How’s the water, Max?” he asked, twisted amusement in his low voice. “I know you don’t like it too hot.”  
           Meanwhile, downstairs, Val heard the water running through the basement’s pipes. He didn’t care, though, too busy bawling. His best friend laid dead only a few feet beside him, all because he’d decided to play a stupid game.  
            _August hadn’t even wanted to play it_ , he lamented. _So why did he have to die first? Why did he get caught up in this at all? God, it’s all my fault!_  
           “August,” he cried into the room, eyes pinched shut, though he knew no one could hear him. “I’m sorry. I’m _so_ sorry. It should’ve been me they killed, not you. It should’ve been _me_ . . . !”  
           “Then do something about it.”  
           He snapped his eyes open. For a second, he could’ve sworn he’d heard August’s voice. But when he glanced at August and saw his corpse, he realized he was wrong.  
            _No, I didn’t hear August. I heard what I would’ve expected him to say. He’d tell me to make it up to him, to even the score in his honor._  
           Val glanced down near August’s feet and saw it: the cane. Cameron had dropped it.  
           He glanced at the chains around his wrists. If the cane was durable enough to remain intact after bashing a skull in, then maybe he could use it as leverage to break his restraints. All he had to do was find a way to pick it up.  
           The most logical option was to reach with his feet. So he stretched himself out along the floor as much as he could and extended his right leg. He was able to catch its curved handle around his heel. Feeling semi-victorious, he scooched himself back into a proper sitting position. Using his foot, he pulled the cane closer so it was under his right thigh. Now came the tricky part: picking it up and getting it into his hands. Since he couldn’t reach down, this seemed easier said than done.  
           It was a bit tricky, but he managed to roll the cane over and move it up his left leg. Then, he started kneeing it up. Once it was crooked, he held it between his skinny thighs (a task of its own) and inched the handle closer to his right hand. He was soon able to grab it.  
            _Yes!_  
           This hand hoisted the rest of the cane up, twisting it so he could grab it in his left. Then, he pressed the still-bloody tip against one of the chains and pressed against it with all his might. The cane slipped a few times, and he was starting to lose hope, but then the chain gave way. Finally, his left hand was free! The excitement and adrenaline from the sweet release gave him the strength to break his right hand free. Then he sat there, staring at the cane in his arms.  
           He could hardly believe that he’d managed to break chains with a cane, but here he was. And now that he was free, he . . . didn’t know what to do. As he stared at the walking stick, blinking at it, he realized he hadn’t thought up any sort of plan. In truth, he hadn’t expected to get past the stage of freeing himself. He needed to get the jump on Cameron, but how could he do that when he didn’t know where he was?  
           That was when he remembered the water that still flowed through the pipes above him. He listened to the sound.  
            _They must be in the bathroom together . . . wherever the bathroom is. But the running water should give me enough cover to go up there!_  
           He stood up and did up his shirt. Then, he looked down at August. It was a gruesome sight; he tore his eyes from it at first, but then made himself look back.  
           “I’ll make him pay, August,” he told his friend’s body. “I promise.”  
           In the basement, he found a few knives. He took one and held it. It was hefty and sharp. Cane in one hand, knife in the other, he headed for the basement stairs. They creaked as he made his way up, but he climbed them as quick as he could.  
           The first floor was spacious and he didn’t know his way around, so he decided to let the sound of running water guide him. It led him to a closed door. With slow movements, he twisted the handle and pushed it open. Inside was the downstairs bathroom. The tub was running, water now spilling over the sides onto the floor. No one was in the room, though. Besides the tub, Val saw nothing unusual. The Ukrainian whipped around, checking his surroundings. All was quiet. Not a floorboard creaked.  
            _Where are they?_  
           He inched his way down the hall. There was no one in the kitchen or living area. When he glanced at the stairs to the second floor, he saw something.  
            _That stair’s wet . . . There’s droplets of water._  
           Putting two and two together, his eyes trailed up the staircase. No one at the top, but that didn’t mean they weren’t up there somewhere. Before going up, though, he looked to his right, at the front door.  
            _Two against one, and I’m smaller than both of them. This isn’t a good idea. It’d be a lot safer to run. But . . ._ The image of August’s body haunted him. He shook his head, filled with anger and determination. _No. I can’t let them get away with that. I need to avenge August._  
           With purposeful but cautious footsteps, Val made his way upstairs. The second floor seemed almost more spacious than the first. It was quiet up there—too quiet. He started to feel nervous, but pushed it back.  
            _Pretend it’s a video game. A speed-run, where dying means a significant time loss. Don’t mess up. Don’t panic. Focus._  
           His eyes scanned the area around him. There were a few doors to his left, a balcony to his right. Behind him were some more doors.  
            _Don’t waste time wandering around. Find out what you need to do to progress the game and do it._  
           He held his breath and stopped thinking, then put all his focus into his hearing. Nothing. Nothing, then, from the first door behind him—  
            _There you are._  
           Throwing away stealth, he leapt around the half-wall at the top of the stairs and lunged for the door past it. He grabbed the knob and twisted, then threw the door open. The room looked like some sort of study, with a laptop on a desk. In the middle of the room stood Max, wearing only the blazer and pants of his suit. His thick brown hair was matted and soaking wet. When Val entered, he jolted in fear. Val, upon seeing him, sneered.  
           “You,” he growled. “You’re exactly who I wanted to find first.”  
           “Val,” stammered the Aussie, “wait. Let’s talk about this.”  
           The Ukrainian glanced at his options. He slipped the knife into his pant pocket to grip the cane tighter. It was only fitting to deal with Max with it, as Cameron had dealt with August.  
           “Val, please!”  
           The only answer Val gave was a battle cry as he dashed forward. Max narrowed avoided the cane as it came down, smashing instead into the laptop on the desk. He swung it to the left, narrowing missing him again. Sensing that he couldn’t dodge forever, Max bolted out of the room. Val chased after him—he might’ve been a bit smaller than Max, but in his fury, he was _much_ faster. Before he could even pass the half-wall, Val was grabbing the back of his hair, pulling him back as he screamed. A wild backward kick made the Ukrainian release him. While he seemed intent on running forward, another swipe of the cane changed his path to the right. There wasn’t far to go, though; when he reached the doorway to the balcony, he turned and realized he was cornered. Val realized this as well, and it made him smirk.  
           “Nowhere to go, Max,” he taunted.  
           The Aussie shook his head in fear; took a step back, which Val countered with a step forward. “Please,” he begged. “Please don’t.”  
           “I don’t want to. I don’t want to, but I don’t have any other choice! Blame your bastard boyfriend; he forced my hand!”  
           “I’ll admit it, okay? He’s taken things way too far! I didn’t want this to happen!”  
           “Why are you helping him?” Val held a hand out. “Side with me, Max. We can stop him together!”  
           “I can’t do that! I . . . I love him!”  
           “It’s not love, can’t you see that? It’s Stockholm syndrome!”  
           That response made Max silent. He didn’t seem to have anything to counter with.  
           “He doesn’t love you.”  
           “He does!”  
           “No, he doesn’t! He’s only tricking you so he can use you whenever he wants!”  
           “Shut up!” Max covered his ears.  
           “If I can’t make you see it, then you don’t leave me any other choice.”  
           He lowered his hands. “You don’t have to kill me. Killing me makes you no better than him! I know you—I’ve watched your streams; you’re too good a guy for this, Val!”  
           Val let out a bitter chuckle. “Let me tell you something about streaming. It’s a lot like showing yourself to strangers. When you want to make a good first impression, you don’t want to show them your flaws, do you?” His eyes narrowed, smirk looking darker than before. “August was the good one, not me. You guys should’ve killed me first.”  
           That said, Val rushed Max. Before the Aussie could react, the cane smashed into his left temple. When he stumbled, Val hit him again, on the other side of his head, then jabbed him in the stomach.  
           “This doesn’t make me a murderer,” he insisted as he kept swinging. “This makes me a hero! This is _self-defense_!”  
           Back he went, until one of the Ukrainian’s relentless strikes caused him to fall back. He landed against the railing of the balcony; its wooden support beams creaked with his weight. Val raised the cane to deliver a finishing blow.  
           “You know, it’s not self-defense if he’s not attacking you.”  
           Cameron’s voice made Val freeze. He turned his head, looking back at the psychopath. Cameron stood leaning against the doorway a few feet behind him.  
           “I never knew you were so vindictive, Val. You’ve done a spectacular job of hiding that side of yourself until now.”  
           “Wait your turn.”  
           “If I ask you something, will you answer?”  
           “ _Suka blyat_.”  
           “When was August’s birthday? You seemed like you wanted to tell me at some point, but he stopped you.”  
           Val glared past Max. “June 20 th. Happy?”  
           Cameron stood up straight. “Wait. The 20th?”  
           “Yes.”  
           “Oh, fuck me! God fucking damn it!” Val turned his head to watch Cameron as he shouted, “You’ve got to be _fucking_ kidding me!”  
           “What?” the Ukrainian snarled.  
           Cameron glared at him, now angry. “You come up here and beat up Max, but it’s _your_ fault. If you’d told me August’s birthday was on a goddamned doomsday, I wouldn’t have killed him yet!”  
           Val felt his heart sink. He zoned out momentarily, mind running circles.  
            _My fault. He’d still be alive. My fault. August wouldn’t be dead if I said his birthday? It’s my fault. My fault. All my fault._  
           How dare _he tell me that_ now _?_  
           Val turned his hazel eyes back onto Max. He raised the cane again, swung it as hard as he could. It slammed into Max’s head, its force throwing him backward still. His full weight and gravity’s combined against the balcony caused the railing’s supports to snap. Without even a scream, the Aussie fell over the side and landed below with a meaty crack and a tumble.  
           The Ukrainian turned himself around completely to see Cameron in full. His dark face wore an expression of genuine surprise, possibly even worry. When he met Val’s firm gaze, it shifted into one of rage. From behind himself, he revealed a large kitchen knife. Val responded by throwing the battered cane down and pulling out the knife he’d taken from the basement. His was much smaller, but likely easier to wield.  
           Cameron extended his other hand and crooked his fingers in a beckoning gesture. “See, now you’ve forced _my_ hand,” he said. “I didn’t want to kill you until your birthday. But if it’s a fight you want, then come at me, you little shit. Let’s fucking end this.”  
           With a yell, Val lunged forward. Cameron side-stepped his blade, then used a leg to swipe at Val’s ankles. There was a loud thud as the Ukrainian crumpled to the floor. When Cameron stabbed downward, he rolled himself out of the way. He hardly had time to get back to his feet before the writer slammed into him—making him drop the knife—pinning him against the doorframe. The stab attempt he made was displaced by Val when he smacked his arm away.  
           “Hold still!” he roared. His free right hand wrapped itself around Val’s throat. The Ukrainian responded by raised his knee hard, smashing it against Cameron’s groin. A quick shout, then the writer folded in on himself, clutching at the attacked area. Val used this time to hurry a few steps away and pick up his own knife.  
           “Low blow, you _cock_!” shrilled Cameron. “Men aren’t supposed to hit other men there!”  
           “You’re no man,” Val snarled. “I don’t know what you are, but whatever it is, it’s not a man!”  
           Cameron looked up at him with a dark, demented grin. “Am I the devil, Val?”  
           “I wouldn’t doubt it.” Val raised the knife. “This is for August!” He brought the knife down. But rather than puncture flesh, his wrist was caught before it could.  
           “Not so fast.”  
           With an iron grip, Cameron clutched his wrist and got to his feet. Val tried to break free, but couldn’t move.  
            _Why is he so strong? Shit, I underestimated him!_  
           Cameron laughed and twisted Val’s arm the wrong way. The Ukrainian cried out and dropped his knife again. When Cameron started trying to get a better hold on him, though, he started to panic and fought to get away.  
           “No!” he shrieked. “No! No!”  
           He broke free, but not for long; Cameron caught hold of his gray overshirt and tugged him back. Because he was so small, it was easy for Cameron’s right arm to slither around him. It held both of his down, so he thrashed with his legs and head, but nothing worked.  
           “Nonononono! _No_! _Nooo_!”  
           Cameron raised his knife up to Val’s throat. From the right to the left, he slid the blade across with firmness. In only a second, he’d ripped the Ukrainian’s throat open. As Val gagged, gasped, choked, blood spurted out wildly. He kept kicking and flailing, harder than before, but Cameron held him even firmer.  
           “Ssh, shh, shh, shh,” he hushed. “The harder you squirm, the faster you bleed out.”  
           The only sounds Val was able to make were loud, gurgling gasps. Cameron sunk to his knees, holding him tighter still as he now kicked his legs against the floor.  
           “You know, I use this knife to cut cake,” Cameron told him as casually as ever. “A real waste of its potential, but I’d never had an opportunity to use it like this before. So thanks for struggling.”  
           It took three minutes for Val’s thrashing to slow. Four for him to finally fall unconscious. Still he gasped and blood pumped steadily out of his neck. The writer released him anyway, allowing him to collapse into the pool that had formed under them. It’d take him another half an hour for Val to run out of ichor and die. Cameron didn’t have that kind of time.  
           The first thing he did once on his feet was rush back to the balcony. He looked down over the broken side. Max was still lying on the ground below, but that wasn’t what worried him most. No, that was the glistening red puddle his hair rested in. Cameron’s eyes widened at the sight of it. For the first time in a long time, he felt fear. It intensified when he realized it was fear for the wellbeing of another person. He lacked empathy and compassion. They were as foreign to him as remorse. Yet, now, he was terrified that the Aussie was dead or dying. The Aussie who’d been with him for almost two years, who he . . .  
           He couldn’t lose him. Not now. Not like this.  
           “Max,” he gasped the name. Then he turned, rushing toward the stairs. “ _Max_!” Down he went before zooming to the front door and tearing it open. He ran straight to Max’s side, crumbling to his knees beside him. There was a small blood stain on one of the stairs; it seemed as though the Aussie had cracked his head open on it in the fall.  
           “Max, hey,” he gently slapped his face a few times. “Come on, answer me! Max, please!” When there was no answer, he wrapped his arms around him and held him tight. “Oh, God, Max. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything! I’m such a fucking idiot. Don’t leave me now, not after everything we’ve been through! Please!”  
           Max groaned. The sound made Cameron’s heart flip in delight. He pulled back to look down at the pained Aussie.  
           “Max!”  
           “I thought she’d be apples . . .” he cried, voice weak. “I thought letting you into my life would be apples . . . ‘She’d be apples’, I thought . . .”  
           Cameron smiled and kissed him. Through it, Max sobbed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Phrases:**  
>  _Suka blyat (Сука блят)_ : sort of "Fuck you, bitch"


	12. Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 1 (January 27th, 2018): Rewritten from scratch. Now links to next in series.  
> Originally posted on May 19th, 2017.

It was snowy in Zürich. For December, that was nothing unusual, but Cameron admired the snow anyway. As the bus slid down the street, he spaced out, lost in thought. He hadn’t been to Switzerland in years, but for a couple months every other year of his childhood, he’d come to Zürich. Thus, he knew it well, despite it having been a long time since his last visit. The bus was driving down a street he knew.  
           After the murders of August Lund and Val Kozel, he’d decided it might be best to leave the country for a little while. It wasn’t that he feared he might get caught somehow. Rather, it was for a less personal reason.  
           He’d managed to nurse Max back to physical health over the course of the last two months.  But while the bruises and lacerations were healing, the Aussie’s mental state was not so easy to fix. Cameron had noticed it gradually at first: how Max became a bit more paranoid and reserved. He started realizing that knives would go missing. Usually, he’d find them under Max’s side of the mattress. The discovery came with no fear for his own wellbeing, though. He was quite certain Max would never try to kill him, at least not in his sleep. If he was awake, he could fight him. So the knives were dismissed. Max was right to be afraid of him, anyway.  
           Then came the night terrors.  
           It wasn’t until Max started sleepwalking and screaming through the night that he decided something needed to change. Most nights, he followed Max around during his night terrors. Rather than wake him, he studied him. One night, when Max started searching for the knife that’d killed Val, Cameron realized this was unsafe. He didn’t want to say he was _afraid_ of Max, but his declining mental health was a definite concern.  
           First things first, he decided it was time to get him out of that house. There were too many bad memories there for him. With a little time away, maybe he’d start recovering. When he told Max about his plan to whisk him away to Switzerland, he’d received a mixed reaction. Part of Max griped about the fact that there’d be snow, but calmed when Cameron insisted it wasn’t as cold as Pittsburgh. That left the other part of Max, which possessed a curious excitement for visiting a new country. Despite the snow, he seemed to like the idea of Switzerland. Seeing him happy about something made Cameron happy. It was still strange to him, being able to feel things because of another person. Why did it make him happy to see Max happy? Why had he never met another person he felt good about pleasing? What was so special about Max Aleshire?  
           He took his eyes off of outside and instead looked at the person beside him. Max had taken the window seat. His gray eyes were unfocused, gazing at the Zürich streets they rolled past. The typical bags under his eyes were much worse, one of them accented by a black eye that had yet to fade completely. Cameron glanced down. Max’s hands were on his lap. He reached over and placed his own over one. The Aussie didn’t look at him; his only reaction was to twist the hand to lock fingers with him.  
           “You look so sad,” the writer said.  
           Max didn’t answer, but Cameron hadn’t expected him to. With everything that’d happened, it was no surprise that he’d become even less talkative than before.  
           “Things will get better, Max. Just you wait and see.” He leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “She’ll be apples.”  
           The Aussie narrowed his eyes at those words, but still kept silent.  
           When the bus glided to a halt at their stop, Cameron elbowed Max and stood up. Finally he looked away from the window, then waited for him to grab their bags before standing up as well. Cameron handed him his; he took it without comment. The writer stepped off the bus first, then extended his arms at his side and took a deep breath.  
           “It’s been too long,” he exclaimed. “I love this city!” Turning around, he saw Max hesitating on the bus’ steps and held a hand out toward him. “Are you coming?”  
           The artist eyed the snow with caution, then stepped into it. His gray sneakers sunk about an inch in, which seemed to relieve him. With less talking and more poker face, it had become a lot harder for Cameron to read him, so he took his interpretation with a grain of salt. For all he knew, what wore on Max’s mind was something else entirely.  
           The bus had dropped them off in front of a hotel. As a few other people walked past them, Cameron flashed Max a smile and approached the doors. It only took a few steps for him to realize Max hadn’t budged. He couldn’t stop himself from sighing. Then, he pivoted, returned to his shorter lover. Once he was close, the Aussie looked up at him. All he could read was that he seemed sad. Beyond that, his reason for not moving was a mystery. Not sure what else to do, Cameron reached out. Max didn’t flinch as his hand moved to his cheek; instead, he leaned into the caress.  
           “Do you trust me, Max?” he asked.  
           Max’s eyes met his. There was a beat of silence. Then, finally, he spoke.  
           “Despite everything,” he answered, “yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please leave a Kudo, and be sure to check out the sequel, _[Our Sick Obsessions](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13537836)_!

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